


Lovesick

by likeporcelain



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depicitons of violence and abuse, F/M, Jon and Dany are not related, Minor Talisa Maegyr/Robb Stark, POV Third Person, Painter!Jon, Pregnancy, Princess!Dany, R Plus L Does Not Equal J, Robert's Rebellion never happened, Romance, Slightly Cinderella inspired, Smut, Sort of Romeo and Juliet inspired, lots of smut, minor rhaegar targaryen/elia martell, then lots of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-05 22:37:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 64,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21216191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeporcelain/pseuds/likeporcelain
Summary: Jon Snow, a bastard of the North, is commissioned by the Crown to paint a portrait of Princess Daenerys Targaryen for the upcoming suitors' ball where Lords from all across the Seven Kingdoms will vie for Daenerys's hand in marriage. Things get complicated when the Princess and the painter develop feelings for one another. When their mutual infatuation snowballs into an intense love affair they can no longer keep hidden, the scandal threatens to destroy not only their relationship, but their very lives.(Title taken from the song "Lovesick" by Banks)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ: This fic contains a lot of smut and also a lot of angst. Most of the smut is in the first half or so while most of the angst is in the second half or so. There will be depictions of violence and abuse. I don't believe these instances are especially graphic; most are implied. But I don't want anyone getting into this story thinking it is going to be a fluffy sex-fest the whole way through. It gets dark, so please keep that in mind before you dive headfirst into this fic. As with any of my fics, if you have any questions regarding the plot and what happens (like, if you need to know certain spoilers/the ending before you commit to reading), feel free to send me a message on Tumblr (un: **danystormbornsnow**) or Discord (un: **likeporcelain#7837**).
> 
> This is the first multi I've written that takes place in the GoT storyworld. That said, expect major details to be changed to suit this story, such as Aerys still being King, Jon not being Lyanna's son, etc etc. 
> 
> Also, as always, this fic is complete and I'll be posting chapters frequently (every one or two days most likely). I may post a sequel later on, depending on the reception of this fic, but a sequel has not yet been written.
> 
> Thank you all in advance for reading! And if you've read any of my previous works, thank you also for that! I hope you enjoy <3

Catelyn Stark was a noble woman, in title and in demeanor. Had it not been for the ruby-encrusted crown fastened to the top of Queen Rhaella Targaryen's head, an onlooker unfamiliar with Westerosi culture may mistake Cat for Royalty, her back stuck up straight, shoulders square, jaw steady and eyes rigid with scrutiny. Yes, Rhaella was the Queen of Westeros, but Cat was ever the plotter to mobilize her own family upward. She pointed her stare at the Princess who sat idly beside her mother, delicate fingers plucking minuscule chunks off a slice of lemon cake and plopping them into her mouth. Ah, the Princess Daenerys was a beauty the likes Westeros had not seen since Rhaella was a teen, but Rhaella's parents were less relaxed in their customs than Rhaella herself and her husband, the King Aerys, were. Rhaella was never subjected to an onslaught of suitors, for she was betrothed by birth to marry Aerys, her much older brother. Sweet Daenerys, though, would soon become a Lord's bride, and that Lord would become Prince. 

Should tragedy strike the Crownlands – and of course, Cat would never wish such a thing – and the Princes Rhaegar, Viserys, and even young Aegon should perish, the Lord who marries Daenerys would become King Consort, and his heir would be King thereafter. Those were the best odds that any young Lord has had in a hundred years of becoming King of the Seven Kingdoms, since the ruling Targaryens liked to keep their family line within the family. 

“We received invitation to your suitor's ball,” Cat spoke whimsically to Daenerys. “You must be excited to have all of the young Lords in Westeros clambering into King's Landing just to try and claim you as their bride.”

Daenerys smiled softly, holding back the smirk that threatened to form upon her lips. The idea of men from all over the country fighting for her hand was something she'd dreamed of since she was just old enough to take interest in boys. Let the young Lords try to claim her, and please let the fiercest of them succeed. Daenerys shifted in her garden chair as the nerves between her thighs tingled. 

“I'm quite excited indeed,” replied Daenerys demurely. From birth her mother had done a wonderful job of teaching Daenerys to be soft in every way. Soft, feminine, and never imposing or especially exuberant. “I've always wanted a husband.”

“You'll meet my eldest son, Robb, at the ball. He's been off on his travels, as young Lords should always be well traveled and well learned, but he wouldn't miss seeing you again for the world,” said Cat. “You remember Robb, don't you? You played together once when you were children.”

After a moment to swallow a bite of cake, Daenerys replied, “I'm not sure. I've seen so many faces throughout my life that it's hard to sift through them all in my head on a whim.”

Cat chuckled, expertly hiding her annoyance. “You speak honesty with kindness, Princess. You'll make a wonderful wife.”

Wife. Daenerys nearly allowed her smile to falter. She rather enjoyed the idea of having a husband – a man to take care of her needs, the needs only a husband can take care of – but she wasn't so sure she wanted to be a wife. The truth was, since even before her first blood, Daenerys longed for someone to share her bed in the same way that her eldest brother Rhaegar and his wife shared their bed. Sometimes, she would prop a feather pillow beside herself in bed. She would drape her arm over it, kiss it even, shut her eyes, inhale, and try to conjure up the scent of one of the many little Lords she'd been made to play with. Maybe she had even used young Robb Stark as inspiration. 

As she grew into her womanhood, Daenerys would sometimes shift her pillow downward, draping her leg over it instead and pressing the soft cushion against the heat between her legs. Sometimes, if she did it long enough, and just in the right fashion, her heart would race and beads of sweat would coat her body beneath her night dress. Sometimes, she would grow so feverish from it all that she thought of putting her hand under her shift to discover once and for all what was causing her to act this way almost every night. But she was always too frightful. Whatever was down there was meant for her husband, and only her husband. That was what her mother and father had taught her. “A man always knows when a woman has not saved her treasure for him,” Rhaella would tell Daenerys every so often.

Oh how her treasure longed to be discovered.

Daenerys shifted once more in her seat as she turned her head toward the horizon. It would be a few hours more til sundown, and then she could reunite with her faithful feather pillow and entertain her hungry heat. 

“Is he tall?” Daenerys asked Cat.

Not especially. But Cat could tell the girl wanted a boy with height, so she responded carefully, “He's of good height. Sapphire eyes. Auburn hair.”

“Tully features,” Rhaella chirped. A simple statement of fact, as red hair and blue eyes ran strong in the Tully family, Cat's family. But while the Tullys were of high status, they were not quite as revered as the Starks – few houses were as revered as the Starks – so Cat grew inwardly defensive. 

“Oh, but he has the strong jaw and strong will of the Starks. He would be a wonderful--”

“I look forward to seeing him again,” Daenerys interrupted, something she was taught never to do, but she was late for a meeting with her tutor. “Tell him that for me, if you will, Lady Stark.”

As the girl bounced off through the garden in the direction of the Keep, Cat struggled to contain her excitement that Daenerys seemed genuinely interested in her boy. 

Indeed, Daenerys was interested. She knew of the Starks and their reputation for being stubborn, smart, honorable, and most of all, masculine. Tully features aside, if Robb was a true Stark, he would not be some pretty little pampered thing the way her brother Viserys or her nephew Aegon were, the way so many young Lords were. If Daenerys was to be a wife, she wanted to be the wife of a man, not a boy.

“You say Robb has been traveling?” Rhaella questioned her old friend before a sip of lavender tea. “Who in the family is the painter? Is that's Ned's bastard?”

Cat's cinnamon eyebrows knitted at the mention of her husband's twenty-year-old mistake, a physical remnant of the one moment in time that honorable Ned Stark was not so honorable. It happened just before they'd married. They still hardly knew one another. And yet, the pain Cat felt when her husband brought home that black haired, gray eyed babe swaddled in kitchen rags cut her to her core, and never in twenty years had she fully recovered. Had these questions come from anyone else, Cat may have swatted them in the mouth, but Rhaella was the Queen, and Cat had to respond with honesty and respect. 

“Jon,” she replied with a tight jaw. 

“I hear he's quite talented.”

“You hear?”

“Yes. Well, I've been asking around,” said Rhaella. “Aerys wants a portrait done of Daenerys for the ball. Being King causes him to sometimes lack practicality, and he does not realize that having a portrait done in such little time is not an easy feat. I heard that one of the Stark boys had done a beautiful portrait of the little Lady Karstark not long ago.”

“Jon is not a Stark,” Cat seethed, forgetting composure. She apologized to the Queen immediately. 

“It still pains you to speak of him,” said Rhaella, not slighted in the least by her friend's temper. “Men are men, Cat. Even Stark men. Aerys has at least a dozen bastards right here in King's Landing. Sometimes I think I can spot them in a crowd.”

“Ned never should have brought that boy to Winterfell. He should have left him where he was. I wish he'd kept his impropriety a secret from me my whole life.”

Rhaella placed a hand upon Cat's. “Send Ned's bastard here. Tell him he will be paid handsomely to paint the Princess's portrait. He may well like it in King's Landing. Maybe he'll stay in the city. Wouldn't that be lovely?”

Cat cracked a smile. Yes, that would be quite lovely. It would also be lovely to return to Winterfell knowing Jon would be headed in the opposite direction. 

* * * * *

Dark eyes gazed at the slope of Ros's waist and the curve of her tear drop breast. Fingers stained black dragged a stem of charcoal across a thick parchment, adding shadow to the triangle of space between the brothel girl's waist and the underside of her bosom. Jon kept his lips parted all the while he sketched Ros. Occasionally, the tip of his tongue would dart out to lick the left side of his upper lip. Ros blushed each time, but only because it was the only time a man licked his lips in her brothel from sheer concentration alone. She found the sight comical and endearing all at once, which was why she kept allowing Jon Snow to take up hers and the other girls' time with his “practicing.” 

“Are you about finished over there?” she asked him with a smirk. “My arm is beginning to cramp.”

“I'm almost done,” Jon assured her, eyes squinted down at the parchment as he gingerly ran his thumb across the markings of her navel to diffuse the sharp lines. His voice was deep and studious, causing Ros to giggle. Never had another man wanted to spend so much time within the walls of her brothel without ever wanting to sample the merchandise. 

“You're cute, Lord Snow,” said Ros. 

“I'm not a Lord,” replied Jon. 

“Are you sure? Because I only give freebies to Lords.” 

Jon looked up just as Ros was lifting a leg up to the table she was posed upon, spreading it apart from the other to give the young man a new perspective of her anatomy. For a moment, she could have sworn she saw hunger flash upon his face. It sent a shiver of excitement down her spine, something she thought was long past possible in her line of business. 

“I think that's quite enough drawing for today,” a calm, powerful voice blew through the chamber. 

Together, Jon and Ros's heads snapped toward the door they hadn't heard open. In the threshold stood Lord Eddard Stark, broad shouldered and stoic. Behind him, just outside the chamber door, were two of his riders. Jon stood immediately, thrusting his parchment and charcoal into his satchel without regard from their preservation. After all, it was just practice. 

Outside the Winter Town brothel, standing in inch deep muck, Jon insisted he wasn't in that chamber to do anything more than add to his collection of sketches. 

“It doesn't matter to me why you were here,” replied Ned brusquely. When Jon's eyes flashed with disappointment, Ned clarified, “You're a man now, Jon. You can do as you please. But, I need something from you now.”

“What is it?” Jon asked, trying not to sound too eager to do his Lord father's bidding. He wanted Ned's approval more than anything in the world, but he was too proud to let it show. 

“You're to ride to King's Landing. The Crown is commissioning you to paint a portrait of the Princess Daenerys. Cat sent a raven this morning about it. It's time sensitive, as they apparently want the portrait finished in time for the upcoming suitors' ball.” 

“King's Landing?” grumbled Jon. Aside from the Red Keep itself, Jon has heard nothing but woe about the city of millions. 

“Don't sneer, boy.” Ned clutched his bastard son's shoulders tight. “This is a big opportunity for you to get into the good graces of the Crown. Imagine what could become of you if you do well in this. Everyone from here to Dorne will be wanting you to paint them. You'll be a rich man, able to buy your own Keep someday.”

Jon released a smile to join his father's. Jon knew he would never be rich, but he did rather like the idea of painting royalty. A portrait of the Princess? That would be hung with pride in the brightest hall of a grand castle, and the name scrawled on the bottom would be Jon's own. He could take pride in that. Ned could take pride in that. 

“When should I leave?” Jon asked. 

“Right away.”

“I have to get my things.”

“I've collected your things.” Ned walked Jon to a steer, already saddled and loaded down with Jon's essentials. “I'm sending one of my riders with you to make sure you get to there safe and on time. No dallying along the King's Road, sketching peasants and tavern wenches. And, Jon. . . while you may not have my name, you still have my blood, and so you will carry yourself as a Stark while you're in Kings Landing.”

Jon gave a short nod, then bid his Lord father farewell. They did not embrace – they hadn't done so since Jon was a boy – but the paw Ned planted on the back of Jon's head radiated a specific sort of love between them. A secret, almost shameful love. A father and his bastard. They parted then, Jon heading South down the King's Road and Ned North to Winterfell, back to his other children, his real children. 

* * * * *

In just a week flat, Jon arrived in Kings Landing with haste and was greeted immediately by the stench of excrement, singed steel, and rancid meat. Soon after, he was greeted by a tall man in gold armor and a long cream cape. His face was wrinkled with substantial age. His posture was straight with substantial confidence.

"You're Ser Barristan Selmy," Jon correctly guessed with an awed expression.

"I'm here to escort you to your living quarters, if you'll follow me. Better to dismount your horse and go by foot. The streets are quite crowded in the city."

As they walked, Ser Barristan leading Jon and Jon leading his horse, Jon asked the aged knight, "Are we going to the Red Keep?"

"Aye," answered Ser Barristan through a graveled voice.

'How can you stand it in this heat wearing that chain mail and those iron plates?' Jon wanted to ask of the man, but they did not speak the rest of the way. Jon was not in the North anymore, where everyone knew him as his Lord father's beloved son. Here in King's Landing, he would be nothing more than any other bastard who wouldn't dare speak to a legendary knight such as Ser Barristan without being spoken upon first.

They entered the gates of the Red Keep and Jon's eyes grew big. The Royal palace made Winterfell look like one of the Winter Town brothels. The towers of golden stone stretched higher than Jon could tilt his head, casting all the tradesmen and servants puttering about the courtyards in shadow. Emblems of the Targaryen crest were mounted in red gemstones upon each gate and archway Jon followed Ser Barristan through. A dragon with three heads.

Just as Jon was beginning to wonder what the view would be like from his chamber window (would he be able to see a horizon of blue sea connecting with clear blue sky?), Ser Barristan stopped at a thick wooden slab at the base of the tall tower. The slab was a door, opening with a series of squeaks and rickets. Dust swirled in the air like ripples through water. Humidity and mildew filled Jon's senses.

"Your chamber," spoke Sire Barristan, vacant of any emotion.

Jon entered the damp room with careful steps, as if the stones underfoot may sink into the earth and bury him whole. A dungeon within the superfluousness of the Red Keep that left a worse imprint on Jon's senses than even the dingiest of Northern brothels. He doubted Ros would lie with a man upon the musty hay mattress for a pouch of gold dragons.

"This is where I'll be staying?"

"Not good enough for a Northern bastard?"

'I am the son of Lord Eddard Stark!' Jon wished to spit out at the knight's feet, but when he spun around, he remembered his father's words. He must carry himself as a Stark, and a true Stark would never need to declare himself a Stark in the face of others. A Stark would be strong. A Stark would endure. "It's fine," he soon stated.

"Good. I'll have your things brought it at once," said Ser Barristan.

* * * * *

The banter at supper was lost on Daenerys. She stared at her plate, twirling her fork around the carved meat, watching the crimson juices as they seeped from the cooked flesh. Interrupting her middle sibling boast of his fine hunting skills, Daenerys posed a question to her King father. "If I marry Robb Stark, will I have to be Daenerys Stark?"

Viserys snorted. "Gods help us if the Targaryen line is diluted with Stark blood."

"The Starks are a fine people," Rhaella casually insisted.

"We don't know who you'll be marrying yet," Aerys stated in his rough, commanding, kingly voice from where he sat at the head of the table, being served a refill of Dornish wine by one of the kitchen servants. "Lord Tywin Lannister has intimated quite an interest in marrying his grandson, Joffrey, to you."

"The Lannisters are even richer than the Tyrells," Viserys spoke gleefully, no doubt wondering how having a Lannister for a brother-by-law could benefit himself financially.

"Speaking of the Tyrells, Loras is quite a dashing young man," added Rhaella, keenly unnerved at the thought of Daenerys marrying that vile little Lannister boy, no matter how many gold mines his family owned. Rhaella sent a smile to her daughter, a sign that her heart rested in sending Daenerys to Highgarden. 

Aerys grumbled a reluctant approval of his wife's opinion. The Tyrells may not have as much gold as the Lannisters, but their Kingdom possessed the most resources. 

Marry Loras Tyrell? Daenerys inwardly balked at the notion. Indeed he was dashing, the prettiest of any Lord Daenerys had ever met, and once upon a time she had quite a crush on his charming face and blonde ringlet curls, but everyone in the Seven Kingdoms knew Loras wasn't intimately interested in women. What Daenerys possessed, he surely would not want, and the thought of marrying someone who did not want her was torturous.

"Please don't marry me to Loras Tyrell, father," pleaded Daenerys.

"Why, Dany, I thought you wanted a husband," Aerys said. "I arranged this entire event just for you."

"I do want a husband," she insisted. "Just, not Loras Tyrell."

"You have your heart set on Robb Stark then?" asked Rhaella, not wanting the conversation to veer back to the Lannisters. 

Another snort sounded from Viserys as he munched on a hunk of mutton.

Daenerys slumped back in her seat only to have her shoulder swatted by her mother, a signal to straighten up and look like a lady. "I don't know," replied Daenerys. "I don't know if I want to live in the North. I don't know if I want to be a Stark. I wish I could have a husband and still be a Targaryen."

"We could simply marry you to Viserys." From any other Lord father's mouth, the suggestion may have been easily taken for jest, but in the Targaryen family, marriage between siblings was a rather common practice.

"Please no, father," Daenerys pleaded again.

"Viserys is to marry Rhaenys," Rhaella insisted. "It's already been decided." Before Daenerys could release a sigh of relief, her Queen mother said, "She could marry Aegon, though. She could be Queen one day."

"No, please," whined Daenerys, stomach turning at the thought of marrying her arrogant nephew who liked to torment her as a child. "Forget what I said. I don't care where I live or what my name becomes. I just want someone who will want me."

"You're Daenerys Targaryen," Aerys stated. "Every boy and man in the Seven Kingdoms and beyond wants you."

"Not Loras Tyrell," Viserys snickered.

* * * * *

That night, when the moon dominated the sky and Daenerys was tucked safely within her feather bed, she tried to remember Robb Stark, with his blue eyes and auburn hair. The last she saw the boy he had to have been no more than ten. Had she fancied him at that age? Would she fancy him now? Tall, with broad Stark shoulders and subtle Tully wit. Did he like to hunt, as Daenerys's father and brothers do? Would he present her trophies from his trips? Or perhaps he would even take her along, and wrap his cloak about her shoulders when the air chilled. They could set up camp along a river bank, and Daenerys could wait for him in their tent while he went about his manly business, and when Robb was finished, smelling of forest dew and musk, he could crawl beside her in bed, pull her close and discover her womanly delights. 

Eyes pressed shut, lips parted, Daenerys rocked her hips against the pillow squeezed tight against the weeping peak between her legs. The image in her head of this faceless man with smooth skin and a hard body absorbed her, sending a blaze of fire circling around her hips and belly, up past her beaded nipples, enveloping her face and seeping past her lips. A whimper escaped her throat just as a wrapping at her chamber door startled her from her erotic reverie. The door creaked open before she could swipe the perspiration from her brow. 

“Daenerys,” spoke her mother's soft voice as an ivory silhouette came closer. Rhaella perched herself upon her daughter's bed and outstretched her hand. “You don't look well, Dany. Are you alright?” 

The back of Rhaella's hand touched Daenerys's forehead, no doubt feeling the heat and the sweat that Daenerys's overactive mind inflicted upon her. 

Daenerys's voice cracked. “I'm alright.”

Rhaella released a sigh, moving her hands to her lap. “You're nervous about the ball.”

“No. Well, yes.”

“There's no need to be. We're going to find you a good match. You may not love him at first, maybe not until after you've married, maybe not ever. But I would never marry you off to someone undeserving of you, someone who will be unkind to you.”

Kindness. . . Daenerys felt guilt bubble in her gut. That was what she should be fretting over: whether or not her husband would be kind, decent, and treat her with respect. The rest was not so important, was it? Whether or not he would touch her just right and finally relieve her of this pressure that consumed her so. 

Again, Rhaella reached her fingers out, this time to smooth her daughter's silver hair from her flushed cheek. “You're a woman now, and it's time soon for you to leave me, but you'll always be my little girl, for as long as I live. I'll always protect you. I won't ever let anyone hurt you.” Rhaella stretched down to press a chaste kiss to Daenerys's forehead, something she hadn't done since Daenerys was a child. “I forgot to tell you earlier,” she said. “Tomorrow after tea, you have an appointment in the East Tower study.”

“An appointment?” 

“Your father and I want your portrait done before the ball. If you do end up in the North, we'll need something to remind us of your face each day, and how beautiful it is.” 

Rhaella left her daughter after another kiss. A frown spread across Daenerys's pouted lips. She curled away from her pillow, hugging her knees to her chest. What if her husband wasn't kind? What if he was cruel? What if he touched her only with possession? What if he whispered only words of malice into her ear at night? What if he used his hard body to smother her rather than make love to her? All the heat had left Daenerys's body, skin cold but no less damp. She pulled a pelt of fur over her linen blanket and held the thick material tight to her chest, burying her nose in the fur. 

* * * * *

“You will treat the Princess with the same respect you would treat the King himself,” warned Ser Barristan as he led the Northern bastard through the long halls and winding stairwells of the East Tower. “In fact, you would do best to speak to her as little as possible. And under no circumstances--” Ser Barristan halted, spinning around to glare down at the young man, a hand on the golden pummel of his sword, “--are you to touch her.”

Jon swallowed the lump in his throat. The old knight did not turn back around until Jon nodded. They resumed walking. 

“There will be a canvas set up for you in the study. We have supplies if you need them,” said Ser Barristan, tone back to it's normal vacancy. 

“I've brought my own materials,” replied Jon, hiking his bag further up his shoulder. 

The next time Ser Barristan halted was before the door to the study, high in the East Tower. Jon's thighs ached from the trip, but the old man seemed no worse for wear. He turned to address Jon once more. “Tomorrow, you may consider dressing more appropriately.” 

Jon looked down at his tunic and trousers, only slightly stained from the ride down the Kings Road. Before he could snap a response, Ser Barristan stepped aside, allowing Jon into the study. 

The room was large and lavish with gold trimming around the high ceiling and ivy wrapped around ivory columns. Yellow midday sun streamed in through the arched windows, the shutters propped open and the silk drapes blowing gently in the Summer breeze. But Jon did not notice any of this. Not at first. As soon as he stepped into the study, Jon's eyes went straight to the young woman sat so elegantly upon a sofa lined with red velvet. 

His chest tightened at the sight. Never before had he seen someone so breathtakingly unusual, so oddly magnificent. “Hello,” he spoke, trying hard to keep his voice steady. “You must be the Princess.” 

Long eyelashes fluttered, blinking amethyst eyes, a small polite smile forming upon plump, rosy lips. She stood, stepping toward him and extending a delicate hand. “Daenerys,” she said, her voice smooth and sweet, like honey and milk. 

Without thinking, Jon took her hand in his and lifted it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the knuckle. Ser Barristan's sword could capture him right then; Jon did not care. He could die happy having laid his lips upon a real Princess. 

Her smooth skin slid from his palm, retracting quickly. Daenerys turned immediately back to the sofa and retook her position, smoothing her hands across her ivory gown. She hadn't expected someone like this young man who just wandered into her study. He couldn't have been much older than herself, but still there was something so manly about him that made her feel vulnerable under his stare. He didn't appear pampered, nor did he seem wholly common either. He was neither clean nor filthy. And the look in his eye. . . dark and soft, neither holy nor haunting. 

Daenerys looked away, down to her knees where a fresh smudge of black stained the silk. Her brow furrowed. “There's a mark on my gown,” she exclaimed, standing again. 

Turning his palms up, Jon looked at the charcoal smearing his fingers. He cursed under his breath and turned to see a menacing grumble on Ser Barristan's face. “I apologize Princess,” Jon said, bringing Daenerys's exasperated expression to him. “I was sketching with charcoal this morning, by the docks.”

“I have to change now,” insisted Daenerys, hiking up her skirt and marching in silver slippers across the stone floor, past Ser Barristan, and out the chamber door. 

Thrusting an finger in Jon's direction, Ser Barristan demanded Jon remain in the study “or I'll have your head on a pike, bastard.” The knight turned and with a flourish of his cape, strode to follow the Princess. 

A heavy exhale left Jon's lungs. He suddenly felt lightheaded. Thirty seconds into meeting the Princess and he already offended her, made a fool of himself, and disobeyed the command of one of Westeros's most legendary knights. 

Alone in the study, Jon was finally able to take in the scenery. A tall canvas stood against an iron isle opposite the velvet sofa, and before the canvas was an oak stool and table. Jon sat upon the stool and gazed at the clean canvas, larger than any other he had worked with. It may take him two weeks to finish a portrait this size. He dropped his bag and fished out his supplies, setting his paints and brushes upon the table to his right, and when he was settled, he simply sat and waited for the Princess and her escort to return. 

When Daenerys did return, she was draped in steely blue, a pendant of a three-headed dragon pinned a silver curtain of fabric to her shoulder. It fluttered behind her as she walked back to the sofa. A new lump formed in Jon's throat that he struggled to swallow down. She was beyond beautiful, and for the next two weeks, he would be paid in gold dragons to stare upon her beauty, to recreate it in oil paints upon a massive canvas, to take Daenerys Targaryen in through the eyes and breathe her new life through his fingertips. 

“Shall we get started then?” asked Jon with a little smile at her. 

But the damage was done already, and the Princess would not look him in the eye. If Jon was going to paint her, he would need to see into her eyes. 

“Look at me,” he said, a soft command, but he should have known better. 

A clearing of Ser Barristan's throat drew Jon's attention to the older man. He was sat upon his own stool, arms folded across his chest, helmet sat on the floor by his boot. 

Jon softened his tone. “I need you to look this way, Princess. Unless you want me to paint you with a sour face and eyes trained at the wall.”

Another clearing of Ser Barristan's throat had Jon inwardly chuckling. “He thinks I should speak to you like you're a child, but you're not a child, are you? I don't think it's polite to treat women like their children.”

Finally, Daenerys snapped her gaze to Jon, glaring into him, lilac daggers. “Who are you?” she asked, as if her not knowing his name was an insult in and of itself. 

“Jon Snow,” he replied, adjusting his stool and canvas so that he could see both it and Daenerys without straining his head. 

“A bastard,” she grumbled. “A _Northern_ bastard.”

“Have you ever been to the North, Princess?”

Ser Barristan answered for her. “The Princess's agenda is none of your business.” 

“Apologies,” spoke Jon to Daenerys. “And I'm sorry about your dress. I was just trying to be cordial, completely forgetting about the charcoal on my fingers. I've never met a princess until now. I suppose I was a little at a loss of thought. I mean, I am nothing but a lowly bastard from the North after all. How I've gotten by in this life all these years with my head still on my shoulders is a true mystery.”

The faintest of smiles appeared upon Daenerys's face, the sort of smile that only registers in the eyes. 

“There,” said Jon. “Stay like that.”

Confusion eclipsed her expression, much to Jon's immediate dismay. 

“No, no,” he said. “You have to relax your face, soften your mouth, but put a smile in your eyes. Then, stay like that.”

The shifts in Daenerys's countenance told Jon she did not quite know how to comply. 

“It's alright,” said Jon. “We can worry about that later. Just, get into the position you want me to paint you in, and hold steady.”

Daenerys scooted forward so her feet could rest flat on the floor. She pressed her knees together, rested her hands in her lap, straightened her back, squared her shoulders, and paralleled her jawline to the floor. 

“That's the position you want?” Jon asked with a raised eyebrow and comical expression. 

“What's the matter with it?” asked Daenerys, taking offense. 

“Nothing, it's just very. . .”

“This is how my father, the King, wants me to pose.”

Jon nodded slowly. “I just don't think it's going to be very comfortable for you.”

“I'll be fine. Just paint the portrait already.”

Jon nearly laughed. She had no idea how long this was going to take. “Suit yourself. Just, keep your eyes on me.”

Daenerys did so, despite her trepidation. This whole thing did not sit well with her, sitting under this strange young man's gaze. She watched his dark eyes as they washed over her, taking in her every detail. Even with Ser Barristan there, she felt so vulnerable to this bastard from the North. No one had ever looked at her in such a way, like they wanted to know her every curve and edge, every angle and blemish. So studious. So vacant of judgment. It was neither cold nor warm. What was he thinking? Does he like what he sees? 

Yet another grumble of Ser Barristan's throat broke Jon of his concentration of her. “Quit staring at her like that,” he demanded, ever protective over the Princess since she was an infant. 

“I'm not--” Jon flushed as he addressed the man. “I'm not staring at her. I'm memorizing her.”

“You don't need to memorize her when she's sitting right in front of you.”

Daenerys swallowed, squeezing her legs a bit tighter together. She rather liked the idea of being memorized. 

“There's a process, alright?” Jon insisted, a bit defensive. “I can't just start painting. I have to figure out her proportions in my head and translate them onto the canvas. If I don't get the proportions right, she's not going to look right in the portrait. I don't know how big her head is or how wide her shoulders are, but if I look at her long enough, I can memorize how large her head is in relation to how wide her shoulders are, and then I can paint them on the canvas without her looking like a lopsided pinhead.”

“I'd rather not look like a lopsided pinhead,” Daenerys said to Ser Barristan, giving her approval of Jon's methods. 

Through a stony glare, Ser Barristan told Jon to “Memorize quickly.” 

Just for that, Jon made sure to take his time. It was nearly an hour before he ever picked up a brush, too busy taking in every little crease in Daenerys's lips, every dark eyelash that framed her eyes, every silver hair that hung down past her shoulders, every small shadow the sunlight cast on the flesh of her neck and chest. He watched the swell of her breasts as they rose and fell beneath blue silk with her every breath, the curve of her small waist where the silk was cinched tight, the silver ring around her pale finger, and how those fingers toyed restlessly with one another in her lap. Jon studied her until he could shut his eyes and still see her as perfectly as if she lived behind his eyelids, until he could swipe a paintbrush across the canvas and be able to feel his fingers on her skin, until he was able to capture a little piece of her and feel it under his own skin, in his soul, until he loved every piece of her the way he loved the sun in the sky, the water in the sea, and the blades of grass that covered the Northern foothills. 

But this was never part of his process. Jon had never had to love someone to paint them. Jon had never painted someone he loved before. 

No, not love, Jon decided. Lust. His eyes moved from the lines upon the canvas to Daenerys's throat, watching it tense with a swallow. Did she want him too?

Evening came too quickly. Jon cursed the sun for not staying put. Daenerys left for supper, and Jon packed up his things as Ser Barristan judged his progress. 

“Doesn't look like much,” the old man stated. 

“Like I said, it's a process,” replied Jon shortly before departing, hurrying back to his chamber to deal with the pressure cresting in his chest and trousers. 

Alone in his dank room, he lit a bundle of candle sticks, drew the curtains, kicked off his boots, and rested back on his bed. He shut his eyes and saw her sitting there on that velvet sofa. He unlaced his trousers and dug his hand beneath the fabric, gripping his swelling cock. He tried to imagine all the details of Daenerys's body that her silk dress disguised from him. Jon allowed his imagination to run free, and in the minutes it took to finish himself off, it was almost as if Daenerys Targaryen was his.


	2. Chapter 2

Daenerys stood before her full length mirror, examining herself at closely. She turned her nose up and swished about in the same steel blue gown she'd worn the day before. "You'll need to dress precisely the same way each time you sit for me," Jon had told her. "You'll need to wear your hair the same way as well. Precisely the same way. Can you do that for me?"

_For me._

Daenerys was used to dressing for other people. She dressed nearly every day for the pleasure of her parents. Each dress she owned was designed for her with specific specifications given by her mother and father. It was because of her mother that Daenerys braided her hair each morning, because Rhaella had brought her up thinking braided hair was elegant and special.

Never before had Daenerys dressed for a boy before, though.

It was for practical reasons, and Daenerys knew that. She needed to dress and appear a certain way so that Jon could paint the portrait correctly. But the logic of it all did not stop the flutter in her chest at the thought of pleasing Jon. She wanted him to like what he saw in all those many moments he spent looking at her. Perhaps he was merely a bastard, but he was still a man, a man her own age with a certain caliber of wit and intellect. If Jon could desire her, perhaps a kind Lord might as well.

On their way to the study, Daenerys looked up at her trusted bodyguard and said, "You don't need to supervise me the whole day, Ser Barristan. I'm not a child anymore."

"You're worse than a child," he said with a quiet smile. "You're a princess. Princesses need the upmost watching over. And I don't trust this painter."

"Because he's a bastard?"

"I've met a number of fine bastards in my day. It has more to do with you being a pretty young woman, and him being a young man lacking in refinery."

"I don't understand."

"Princess, you've been lucky to live a privileged life. I've seen what average men are capable of when alone in a room with a girl they desire."

Desire. There was that word. "You think he desires me?"

Ser Barristan cast a wary look her way as they reached the study, perhaps noticing the glimmer in Daenerys's eye.

"All I mean," Daenerys quickly said, "is that perhaps you could wait outside in the corridor. You're quite intimidating, and I don't want my portrait to suffer because Jon is nervous. I'll call out to you straight away if I need anything."

"Princess, I don't think that's a good idea."

"Because you don't trust Jon Snow, or because you don't trust me?"

"I do trust you, but I am not blind. You liked it, him watching you the way he was the other day. I remember being your age. I made foolish decisions."

Daenerys flushed, heart beat racing like she had been caught in a lewd act. Defensively, she stated, "I am a Princess, Ser Barristan, not some common girl. The decisions I make are never foolish."

A wave of uncomfortable tension enveloped them. Within moments, Ser Barristan gave a short bow, an act of resignation to the Princess's wishes. They both turned into the study, and they both stopped abruptly upon seeing Jon Snow perched in his stool, mixing paints on a wooden pallet. He smiled at the both of them.

"Good morning. Ready to get back to it, Princess?"

Daenerys's cheeks turned bright pink. Ser Barristan's expression soured.

"How did you get up here?" he asked gruffly.

"Oh, I just walked up," replied Jon. "See, I was here yesterday so it wasn't too difficult to find the way."

"You can't be wandering the halls of the Red Keep unaccompanied."

"I didn't know that was a rule."

"It's a rule."

Jon directed an apology at Daenerys, though he did not look to her very apologetic. "Shall we?" he asked, gesturing toward the sofa.

_Shall we._ Like it was something they were doing together. Daenerys looked to Ser Barristan and asked him to take leave.

Reluctantly, the knight replied, "I'll be outside the door. Call for me if you need anything at all."

Daenerys watched him leave, then pulled the chamber door shut, committing herself to being alone with the bastard painter. She took some time mustering up the courage to meet the young man's eye. "Did you hear that entire conversation?"

"Only the last bit," he casually replied. Though, really, Jon felt anything but casual about what he'd heard. _You think he desires me?_ she had asked. If spending all night in bed dreaming of what he would do to her if he only had the chance meant he desired her, then he was guilty as sin. But he couldn't see her expression as she asked the question. Did the thought disgust her? Did she find the idea of a Northern bastard wanting to touch and taste every inch of her body utterly revolting? Or did she enjoy the thought? Did she, perhaps, desire him, too?

"I just don't like being treated like a child, and that includes being watched over like a toddler who doesn't know the difference between a toy horse and a boiling cauldron.”

Jon silently chuckled. “So am I the toy horse or the boiling cauldron?”

“You are a bastard commissioned to paint my portrait,” she answered matter-of-fact. “Speaking of which, can I see it?”

“There isn't much to see yet,” replied Jon, but he stood and stepped back to allow Daenerys a look at his rudimentary outlines. Embarrassed by his lack of progress, he explained the markings to her, pointing out the mark which indicates to him where the crest of her head is, her eyes, the line between her lips, and the tip of her chin. He carried his finger down, showing her the lines where he shall paint her shoulders, her bust, waist, and hips. He moved his finger down to the line where the toes of her silver slippers peaked out from under the hem of her gown. Then there are the parallel lines of the sofa, the line where the walls meet the floor, and the lines of the columns in the background. 

“It's like a puzzle,” Daenerys decided. 

“Exactly,” Jon replied. He stretched his arm out in front of Daenerys, motioning to their surroundings. “Here are the puzzle pieces, and my job is to pluck them all out one by one--” he moved his hand to the canvas, “--and put them here, recreating everything, but using paint instead. If I've succeeded, the portrait should look almost precisely like real life.”

“Almost,” whispered Daenerys, enraptured by the analogy, but more so by Jon's forearm as he made his gestures, the lean muscle, the blue veins and the dusting of thin black hairs. 

“Of course. One day, perhaps, someone will figure out a way to trick the viewer into thinking a painting isn't a painting at all, but I have never heard of such an artist, and I certainly am not such an artist. Just as you still see the lines within a puzzle, you'll see the brush strokes of the painting. The trick is making them as subtle as possible, so that if you look at it long enough, you can begin to forget it's paint, and imagine it's real.”

“It that way, it's more like a magic trick.”

“Aye. A magic trick where you know exactly how it's done, but it's somehow still utterly unfathomable.” 

_Unfathomable._ Jon did not speak as if he was a bastard raised by common folk in a Northern village. He spoke as if he grew up in a castle. Could he read and write as well as paint? Though her gaze remained on the canvas, Daenerys was no longer looking there. Her mind was elsewhere, enjoying standing so close to Jon. She wished for him to speak more proper words to her. She didn't care what about, as long as his voice could fill her ear. 

“Shall we continue?” Jon asked, and Daenerys turned, suddenly realizing they stood a mere foot part. 

She quickly nodded and moved toward the sofa. But before she sat, she turned and asked, “Oh. How do I look?”

Taken aback by the question, Jon could think of no other answer than the truth. “Beautiful.” 

Daenerys's lips parted. “I mean, do I look as I did yesterday? You told me I had to--”

“Oh. Yes, yes. You look perfect,” Jon hastily reiterated. 

_Perfect._ She smiled as she sat, mimicking her pose from the day before. Minutes went by of Jon's gaze alternating between her and the canvas, but Daenerys noticed something different about the way he looked at her. He seemed dissatisfied, squinting and shifting uncomfortably in his stool. 

“Princess,” he finally spoke, waving his hand to the left. “Could to move a bit that way.”

After momentary confusion, Daenerys scooted a few inches to her right. “Is that good?”

“No.”

Daenerys frowned, scooting further right. 

“No, no. Move back a bit.”

She scooted left. 

“No, that's too far.” Jon abruptly stood and took long strides to Daenerys, and before she could process what was happening, Jon was standing over head and dipping his hand to her waist. 

She flinched back, shoving him away. “Don't touch me,” she ordered, face contorted in disgust as if he was a rodent crawling over top her. 

Jon took a step back, lifting his hands slowly in surrender. “I'm sorry.”

Daenerys shook her head at her over reaction and released a breath. “You aren't supposed to touch me. Ser Barristan would cut off your hands and string them around your throat.” 

“I understand, and I'm sure he would do so with pleasure,” replied Jon. “It's just that, I need you in precisely the same spot you were in yesterday, and in precisely the same manner. Do you mind?”

Something stirred in her belly. She swallowed, and the sensation made it ache all the more. “You don't have charcoal on your hands, do you?”

Smiling, Jon turned his palms to Daenerys. “All clean.”

“Alright then.”

Daenerys held her breath as Jon knelt before her. His hands, slowly this time, met her waist, holding her as he guided her to the exact place on the sofa cushion he needed her. He stood then, leaning to her eye level. Their noses were mere inches apart as he pressed his hand behind her back to straighten her. He adjusted her shoulders next, and then his thumb and finger took gentle hold of her chin and moved it just a smidgen to her right. Unable to hold her breath any longer, Daenerys inhaled deeply through her nose, taking in his scent. He smelled like the Blackwater, and like something else. The scent of man, she figured. It made her palms sweat, and she wiped them quickly on her skirt before Jon took them into his own hands. He moved them in her lap, going so far as to manipulate her fingers in just the right way. 

“Your skin is hot,” Jon breathed. “Are you nervous?”

Of course she was nervous. But immediately, Daenerys shook her head. 

“Don't,” Jon gently demanded. He touched his fingertips to Daenerys's jaw and shifted her head back to where it was. “I know it's difficult, but I need you to remain in this position for as long as you can. You can speak, but don't nod. Don't move a muscle.” He gave a little smirk. “I'll be able to tell if you do.”

Just then, the muscles within Daenerys's most private of places clenched and flexed. She wondered if Jon could tell. 

Before he wandered back to his canvas, Jon said, “And try to smile. Not so much with your mouth, but with your eyes. You have the most stunning eyes. I'm sure you hear that all the time.”

“I do,” replied Daenerys, but never had the compliment settled so seductively inside her. She wanted to hear from his lips what else about her he found stunning. She wanted him to breathe compliments into her ear about places on her body no one had ever seen before. 

“That's it,” Jon exclaimed, picking up his brush with a look of approval. “What you're doing with your eyes right now. Keep doing that. Keep looking at me like that. It's perfect.” He made a few strokes. Daenerys could just faintly hear the scrape of the brush against the canvas. “You're doing great, Princess.” 

In such a way as to ensure her body placement never shifted, Daenerys replied, “You can call me Daenerys.” 

Jon's eyes found hers again. “You're doing great, Daenerys.” 

* * * * *

As soon as he was safe behind the closed chamber door of his temporary living quarters, Jon snaked his hand inside his trousers. He found the bed with eyes shut. He could still feel her supple skin on his fingertips while he stroked himself to full mast. He could still taste her name on his tongue. 

Even alone, Jon wouldn't dare let her name escape with his ragged sighs. If anyone knew he was lusting so hard for the Princess, he would be thrown in a cold cell. If anyone knew what he did to her in his head as he pleasured himself, he would be strung up and tortured. But oh, the things the sweet Princess did to him in his fantasies enraptured him so. His cock wept at the thought of her. He hadn't any idea how he was able to keep himself calm enough around her not to spike an erection. Maybe it was all his time spent in the brothels that allowed him such self control. But as soon as he was alone, it wasn't long before he was bathing in the afterglow of euphoria, cock spent from the mess it left upon his belly and the palm of his hand. And as soon as he gained his bearings, Jon found he missed Daenerys deeply. What good was an orgasm without someone to share it with?

No. . . He cursed himself for even considering it. Jon had never wanted anyone as much as he wanted Daenerys, but she could never be his. Not for one night, one hour, or even one single moment. The Princess was the property of the King until the day she would become the property of her husband. That was how it worked, and while it made Jon sick to his core, there was nothing he could do to change that. If he ever so much as laid a finger on Daenerys without the purest of intentions, that would be the end of him. Not even Lord Eddard Stark could save him. 

Jon rolled over in bed, eyes falling upon a silver pendant upon the bedside table. A gift from his father. Actually, a gift from his father to his mother, and then to Jon as a babe upon his dear mother's death. It was an old coin, a relic of the past when Northerners paid with Northern currency. The profile of a direwolf was carved intricately into it's face, a more elaborate illustration of the Stark House sigil. It was still in pristine condition. Ned had saw to that as a lad, and Jon had carried on with its preservation. It was all he had that once, for a short time, belonged to his mother. She had fallen for a high Lord, the heir to the entire Northern Kingdom. She had died for it, having bled out on her birthing bed, giving life to Lord Stark's bastard. Perhaps this coin was not the only thing Jon's mother passed down to him. Perhaps he was cursed to follow in her footsteps. 

* * * * *

“How is everything going with Jon?” asked Rhaella over breakfast. 

The name that left her mother's mouth startled Daenerys until she remembered that organizing the painting of her portrait was Rhaella's doing.

“It's going well,” she replied between nibbles of toast and jam. “He's a bit. . . brash.” 

“Northmen tend to be. He isn't being inappropriate with you, is he?”

“No, not at all,” Daenerys answered quickly. 

“That's good--”

“In fact, I should probably get going. He'll be coming around shortly and I have to make sure I'm looking correctly.”

Rhaella raised an ivory eyebrow, “Correctly?”

Daenerys hastily explained to her mother the intricacies of portrait art as explained to her by Jon. She spoke with such reverence that Rhaella grew wary. As her daughter scurried away, Rhaella called after her. “I'm glad you're having a fine time, but please remember, dear, Jon is a bastard.” 

Daenerys came to a stop in the archway to the hall and sent her mother a confused look. “I know that,” she stated.

“Just, be careful.”

The warning washed the levity out of Daenerys's step as she marched back up to her bed chamber to change. Be careful? Simply because the man was a bastard she needed to be careful of him? It was her mothers doing bringing Jon Snow into the Keep in the first place. Why now was she suddenly on guard?

* * * * * 

“How do I look?” was the first question Daenerys asked of Jon once they were both reunited in the study, Ser Barristan waiting dutifully in the hall behind a closed door. 

“Perfect,” Jon answered with a small, polite smile. 

Oh how Daenerys loved to be perfect, but she couldn't help but long for more creative descriptors. 

“Is this right?” asked Daenerys when she posed upon the sofa.

Jon got that same dissatisfied look from the day before, but he seemed reluctant to speak up, even making a few brush strokes before the inaccuracies got to him. “Actually, could you move forward a bit. You're too far back.”

Daenerys slid forward on the sofa. “Like this?”

They carried on like this for a minute, and each moment brought a new flash of pain to Jon's face, as if each move Daenerys made in the wrong direction caused him physical harm. 

“Just come and show me,” Daenerys eventually insisted, hating that she had to come out and say it, that she had to play this game in order to get him to touch her. They were just simple touches, necessary touches, nothing inappropriate about them at all. She could allow herself just that much from him, couldn't she? 

But Jon was reluctant to comply this time. He looked as though he wanted nothing to do with Daenerys, like it was all he could stand to even be so close to her as the easel and canvas. Perhaps they were just simple touches, but Jon feared even the gentlest of skin to skin contact between them would send him spinning out of control, unable to stop. But he needed her position to be exact, and it was far from exact. So he reluctantly stood, bracing himself for contact. 

Just as he did the day before, Jon guided Daenerys with his hands rested on the curve of her waist until she was settled correctly. With one hand on her back and the other on her shoulder, he adjusted her posture. With fingertips pressed softly to her jaw, he fixed the position of her head. He twirled a finger in her hair to get the right amount of buoyancy from that particular lock. 

“Perfect?” Daenerys asked, eyes staring up at him while keeping her head steady. 

“Yes. Don't move.”

Back at the easel, perched on his stool, Jon made certain he only looked at Daenerys when it was absolutely necessary. This wasn't lost on Daenerys. She could sense his distance and mistook it for disinterest. The silence between them made her feel alone. Alone and frozen in one place. 

“Your eyes,” Jon eventually stated. 

“What?”

“Your eyes aren't smiling. It's the most important part of the painting. If the eyes aren't right, nothing is right.”

“Sorry,” muttered Daenerys. “Are you alright?”

“I'm fine.”

“You're usually more chatty than this.” 

Jon let out a sigh of frustration. “Your eyes, Daenerys.”

Daenerys rolled her eyes in response. “I don't know what you want from me.”

Jon dropped his forehead into his hand. This wasn't going to work. He couldn't distance himself from her so completely and also paint her. Painting someone was an intimate act even when he had no interest at all in the subject. He needed her to be relaxed but stiff at the same time, stoic and happy all at once. He needed her to trust him, but most of all, he needed her to not look completely miserable. 

When he picked his head back up, it was with a new resolve. A resolve to work with Daenerys the way he needed to, despite the risks. “Are you excited about the ball?” he asked her, a lightness to his tone that hadn't emerged yet that day. 

The ball. Why was it that when Daenerys was with Jon she completely forgot about the ball? “I am. I'm nervous, but also excited.”

“You're going to be picking out a husband, is that right?”

“Well, it's not that simple. The men will present themselves to me and my parents, give their gifts and state their assets. I'll dance with some of them, and then my mother and father will decide who is the best match for me.”

“Your parents decide?”

“They'll take into account my wishes of course.”

Jon nodded. His brother, Robb, would be going to that ball and presenting himself to Daenerys and the King and Queen. Jon couldn't imagine anyone turning down a proposal from Robb. He would be a great husband to any woman. Never had that fact angered Jon more, but he'd rather have Daenerys wedded to someone good than someone bad, and the young Lords of Westeros were quite a mixed bag. “Are you interested in anyone in particular?”

“I don't know,” replied Daenerys. “I don't really want to talk about the ball.”

“I thought you wanted to chat.” And Jon had hoped that talking about a grand party just for Daenerys would have cheered her up, but it seemed to be doing the opposite. Her eyes turned sad. “What's wrong?” 

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Have you ever lain with a woman?”

Jon was so shocked by the question he nearly fell from his stool. “Uh. Yes. Yes, I have. Why?”

“Oh.” A mix of relief and dismay flooded Daenerys, fighting for dominance. If he was knowledgeable about these topics, perhaps he could answer some of her pressing questions. On the other hand, Daenerys despised the thought of Jon touching another woman in the way she longed for him to touch her. 

“Is that what you're nervous about? Lying with a man?” 

Daenerys swallowed a tick lump in her throat, her cheeks turning a bright red. “That's not what I'm nervous about.”

And there was the smile. Not on her lips but in her eyes. Jon couldn't help his small smirk. “So, laying with a man. . . That's the part you're excited about?”

Daenerys felt about ready to combust she was so mortified. But is was a fun sort of humiliation. Exhilarating. Like when she sneaked a flask of wine into her bed chamber for her and her former maid to share. She new Irri would not tattle on her, because they were in on the secret together. She wanted Jon to be in on this secret with her.

"My body aches every night," she confessed. "I want badly to become a true woman, but I know it can't happen until I'm married. It's everything else that makes me nervous. Committing to one man for the rest of my life, being a wife, taking his name and moving far away, away from my family and everything I know. But my body wants a husband."

Jon gulped, shifting uncomfortably in his stool. His cock was stirred by Daenerys's confession and he feared if it went any further, it would grow past the point of him being able to conceal it. "We shouldn't speak of this, Daenerys. It isn't appropriate."

Her heart sank, pulled down by shame. "Oh."

"I mean, we shouldn't be talking about this with each other. Ser Barristan would behead me on the spot."

"I'm sorry."

"No. Please, don't be." He sighed, hating the look of shame that veiled her face, and that he was the one to cause it. "Your body doesn't want a husband, Daenerys. It just wants to be with a man."

"I can't be with a man unless I'm married."

"Well--" Jon stopped. No, he couldn't go this far. It was too much.

"What is it?"

"I really shouldn't."

"I demand you tell me."

Well, if she demanded. . .

"I was just going to say, if your good enough with your hands, maybe you don't need a man."

A silver eyebrow rose above a lilac eye. "My hands?"

"You're hands," Jon repeated, waving his own in front of him.

"I don't understand."

This time, Jon cocked an eyebrow and stared back at the Princess confused. "I mean when you touch yourself."

Daenerys looked even more confused now. Forgetting all about her positioning, she tapped an index finger against her shoulder. "Touch myself?"

Jon found he was so in awe of Daenerys's naivety it left him near breathless. "You mean, you've never. . ."

"Never what?"

"Touched yourself."

Again, she tapped her fingers against her shoulder. "Touch myself?"

"No." Jon laughed through an exasperated exhale. "Daenerys, I really shouldn't be talking to you about these matters."

"Please, just tell me what you're talking about so I can stop feeling like such an idiot," she pleaded. 

It took Jon a few moments to compose himself enough to say what he intended. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined he would be discussing masturbation with Princess Daenerys Targaryen. "I mean when you press your fingers to your sex and stroke yourself."

Daenerys felt her heart stop for a long moment. Her hands trembled in her lap. Her leg muscles flexed, toes curling within the confines of her slippers. "I can't," she murmured.

"Pretend it's a man touching you," Jon continued, voice low and his pallet discarded on the end table; there was no way he could paint when all the blood in his body was rushing to the muscle in his trousers. "When you feel your sex coat with wetness, you can even slide your fingers inside and--"

"Stop," Daenerys's meekly commanded, unable to pry her gaze from her lap or pick her stomach up off the floor.

"--pretend it's a man pressing himself inside you."

"I don't want to talk about this anymore."

“Pretend your fingers are a man's cock--”

“Stop!” she insisted, finally coming to her senses enough to jolt upward and stand before him with an expression not unlike the kind Ser Barristan often treated him with. 

Her reaction pleased Jon, because he knew it meant his words had penetrated her enough to cause a fire in her, even if that fire spouted a few embers his way. But then the chamber door flew open, and Ser Barristan stood at attention, hand on the pummel of his sword as he had just before Jon's first ever session with the Princess. 

“Are you alright, Princess?” he questioned with a voice that reminded Jon of the consequences to his careless behavior. Fear bubbled in him, eclipsing his arousal, but not working quite fast enough to mitigate his erection. He sat hunched, one leg crossed over the other in an effort to disguise it. The knight surely wouldn't suspect anything amiss from a painter with poor posture, would he? Oh, but the Princess. . . her countenance looked absolutely scorned. Jon hadn't realized before now that it wasn't just Ser Barristan or the King himself who could have Jon hanged for his behavior. Daenerys could turn on him at any moment and order his arrest. 

Just when Jon was beginning to sweat with fear, Daenerys turned to her bodyguard and said in a whimper, “I'm not feeling well, Ser Barristan. I don't think I can continue today. I need to lie down.”

Like a father would, the old man rushed to her and took her shoulders carefully in his hands. “What's the matter? Do you need me to fetch the Grand Maester?”

“No, I just. . .” Daenerys pressed her hands to her abdomen. “I have a terrible ache is all. Perhaps I ate too much at breakfast.” Her eyes met Jon's for the briefest of moments before she scurried out of the study to make her own way to her bed chamber. 

A wave of relief laved over Jon. She'd saved him. He'd spoken to the Princess of all the Seven Kingdoms like she was a common whore in a Mole's Town brothel, and yet she said nothing of his impropriety. _I have a terrible ache_ she'd said. Aye, Jon knew well what such an ache felt like. 

* * * * *

As soon as Daenerys got to her bed chamber, she commanded the maid dusting the curtains to leave. “I need to rest,” she insisted, feeling immediately guilty for speaking so shortly to the girl of barely fourteen. “Wait.” The girl stopped before the door and turned, bowing slightly to the Princess like she were a little boy. “Will you help me?”

The girl came forward and assisted Daenerys out of her blue gown. The girl draped it within the tall wardrobe in the corner, and Daenerys bid her leave once more. Alone, and dressed only in her thin shift, Daenerys toed out of her slippers and crawled into bed, curling in on herself tightly, hands in balls against her chest, toes curled, thighs trembling as she ground them together. A soft moan escaped her throat, both in pleasure and frustration at the sensation. She felt the humidity grow at her crest. 

Jon's words circled in her mind. _Pretend it's a man._

Paranoia thrust Daenerys out of bed and to her windows. She closed the shutters and drew the silk drapes and wool curtains until it was so dark within her bed chamber, she could convince herself it was nighttime. Then, she crawled back into bed. 

_Pretend it's a man touching you._

Turned onto her stomach, cheek pressed into her feather pillow, Daenerys took a few deep inhales and snaked her right hand underneath her belly. She fisted her shift, bunching it up until she felt her hips bared against the sheets. She was made of one part fear and one part need. It made for an exhilarating combination of nerves wound tight within her. 

She moved her hand lower until she could feel the silver thatch of hair adorning her neglected mons. Lower more, to where the hairs were damp with fluid. _When you feel your sex coat with wetness, you can even slide your fingers inside._ She squeezed her eyes shut, breathed heavy into the pillow, and pushed her hand ever lower, following the creases in her flesh, dipping a tentative fingertip through the hair and the puckered lips that have kept her vagina concealed for nearly nineteen years. Everything was slick and slimy, her finger was instantly coated in the substance. It felt icky to Daenerys, but at the same time enthralling, and when her fingertip brushed against a small, pebbled nub, she nearly screamed. Not from pain, or even from fear anymore. It was the most electrifying of sensations. She pressed her hips down and glided her finger once more across the little button of flesh and nerves. 

In a matter of seconds, her whole body was red with fire, her whimpers and moans and watery eyes doing a number on her pillow. A few more swipes of her finger against slippery flesh and Daenerys's entire body shook. Every muscle in her body tensed. Her back arched, forehead digging into the pillow, mouth open in a near-silent squeal, until every piece of her erupted in flames, burning away her need along with her fear. Her hand stilled, body slumped, eyes blinked lazily at the wall as a line of drool dripped past her lip. Never before had Daenerys felt such utter tranquility, and all because she did exactly as Jon bid of her. 

_Pretend it's a man touching you._ And she had.


	3. Chapter 3

Upon their fourth session, Daenerys could hardly look at Jon. Though her loins were satiated, the flutter in her belly whenever she was near him had not subsided, and she feared that meant that what she felt for him stretched beyond her repressed sexual needs. When Jon's hands brushed her bare shoulders to straighten her back, Daenerys thought her skin may singe right off. 

“I need to apologize,” Jon softly said, a tenseness to his voice, an anxious lilt. 

“For what?” asked Daenerys, so lost in the sensation of his warm palms upon the sides of her face as they positioned her head just right. 

“For the things I said to you yesterday. I shouldn't have spoken to you like that.”

Ah yes, Daenerys remembered those words well. She heard them again in her head just then. Jon's low voice uttering scandalous phrases about her wet sex, and cocks. Her knees stiffened and she wiggled her bottom against the sofa, displeased by how easy it was for her lust to reawaken. She thought that she had tamed herself in her chamber the day before, but it seemed it was only a temporary solution to a persistent condition. If she were brave enough, Daenerys would have flashed her teeth and told him she couldn't remember what he'd said, and maybe he ought to repeat them gently into the hollow of her ear. 

“It's alright,” she soon intimated. “I seem to remember you warning me that the conversation had veered of track. It was my fault really.”

Jon smiled as he wandered back to his canvas. A princess with humility. He didn't think such a thing possible, but then again, he had only ever met one princess. “Let's just forget about it.”

Oh, but Daenerys did not want to forget about it, and even if she did, she knew any efforts would be futile. “Actually, I wanted to thank you.”

Brow furrowing, Jon turned from his paints to question the Princess, but she explained before the words left his mouth. 

“No one had ever told me. . . I didn't know. . .”

“Well, you're a princess,” replied Jon casually, urging himself to keep his speech professional this time, not wanting to tread into dangerous territory again, but then Daenerys spoke again. She spoke such a sentence that shook Jon so thoroughly to his core, he could not stop the words from rippling straight down to his cock. 

“I did what you told me to do.”

He swallowed, running his eyes over her, but she gave no hint to her psyche in her countenance. No, she remained perfectly still, just where he had placed her. She looked perfect. Too perfect. He longed to see her back upon the cushions, her limbs splayed, knees bent, a look of comfort and sensuality upon her face as he hovered above her. 

“What?” he asked, shaking away his fantasies. Had he heard her right?

“I did as you said,” she repeated, voice so quiet he almost couldn't hear. Almost. “I. . . with my hand.”

The wind left Jon's lungs. He trained his gaze upon his canvas, but no amount of restraint could keep his arousal at bay. “Do you feel better?” he asked, jaw tight. 

“I did. But it seems the. . . tension. . . is back. I can't get rid of it.”

“I know what that's like.”

“You felt the same before you were with a woman?”

Now. He was feeling it now. 

“Have you been with many women?” she asked, and oh how Jon wished she would keep her gorgeous mouth shut so that he could work. 

“No,” he answered quietly, trying with all his might to focus on the marks he was creating on the canvas. 

“How many women have you been with?”

“That's personal.”

“You don't want to tell me?”

Jon sighed, dipping his brush into a goblet of water and watching the plumes of blue fill the clear liquid. “There were a few encounters when I was young. But. . . I've really only been with one woman.”

“What was it like?”

“Daenerys.” He leaned away from the canvas to meet her eye. “I don't want to talk about this.”

“Why not?” she asked with a chuckle in her throat. “Fine. Is she pretty?”

Jon released a sigh. “She was.”

“Was? She isn't any longer?” What a grand scenario, to be prettier than the only woman Jon had ever been with. 

“She isn't alive any longer.”

Any humor in her tone crawled back down her throat to bury itself within the pit of her stomach. “Oh,” was all she could manage to say in response to her foolishness. Silence enveloped them. Daenerys wallowed for a long while, allowing Jon to paint her in peace. But eventually the silence grew too unbearable. “I'm sorry, Jon.”

Jon's lips parted at the sound of his name upon her tongue. “It's alright. It's been a couple of years now.”

A couple of years? He had to have been no older than eighteen when he lay with this woman. Had he loved her? He must have, to give himself to her in such a way. Did he still love her, even now that she was gone? These questions plagued Daenerys's mind as she struggled to remain still for Jon. She did not want to falter, not in body or mind. She wanted to be perfect for him, always. 

“Daenerys.” His voice woke her up. “You're moving.”

Indeed, her back had curved and her shoulders dropped to form a dejected slump. Her chin pointed down toward her lap and now she could not regain her original position. Jon slid from his stool and came to her easily. A hand at the small of her back fixed her posture. Hands upon the curve of her shoulders squared them. Finger and thumb underneath her chin turned her head to it's proper position. 

“How am I?” asked Daenerys in a soft whisper of breath before Jon's hand could leave her skin. There was a sheen of moisture across the pads of his fingers, signaling his nerves. And his fingers never left. Instead, they tilted her head upward. 

Staring up at him now, Daenerys saw the entranced expression upon his fair face, and the longing in his deep, gray eyes. 

His thumb dragged across her small chin. 

Her lips parted. 

He finally answered, “You're beautiful.”

Daenerys felt so utterly at Jon's mercy, and nothing had ever excited her more. His thumb swiped slowly along her bottom lip, feeling the smooth, plump petal of flesh. He did it again, this time grazing the edge of her front teeth. Little white pearls, a sign of her nobility. Daenerys touched the tip of her tongue to his skin, tasting the salt.

For a moment, she thought Jon may lean down and cover her mouth with his, but the next move Jon made was to pull away and turn his back to her. Daenerys watched as he fumbled with the front of his trousers, and when all was seemingly settled, he crossed the room and regained his seat before the easel. 

“Is my head in the right position?” asked Daenerys, making an attempt to turn it in the correct way. 

“It's just fine,” replied Jon without even looking her way. “I think I'm going to focus on the background for now, so don't worry about it.”

* * * * *

That evening, Jon wouldn't allow his mind to be dominated by thoughts of Daenerys Targaryen. He wouldn't coop himself up in his musty chamber, imagining she were lying beneath him, naked save for the Stark pendant rested between her breasts. Never had Jon longed so much for another to wear his cherished heirloom. The silver would shimmer so profoundly upon her unblemished skin. 

Rather, Jon went out, wandering the busy streets of Kings Landing from the street of steel, to the gates over the Blackwater. He found himself at one tavern after the other, downing a pint of ale at each. He staggered into a number of brothels, asking in a slur to sketch a few of the girls only to have doors at each slammed in his face. The whores weren't as flexible with their time here as they were in the North. 

When the moon shown full and high in the black sky, Jon ended up back in his chamber at the base of the East Tower, pressing charcoal to parchment, sketching from memory Daenerys's precious face. Oh how he longed to kiss her lips, her supple breasts and sweet sex. How he wished to hold her tight to his chest and smooth his palm down her silver hair. How he wanted just to be near her, to look into those sunset eyes and never blink again. 

He arrived to his next session with the Princess with his head caught in the grip of a dull headache. 

Ser Barristan stood at attention in the hall before the opened study door. He greeted Jon with a tight lipped scowl. Daenerys was sat in the red sofa, dressed in the same blue gown and hair twisted in the same braids. But no matter how accustomed Jon grew to seeing Daenerys in this way, it always took his breath away how stunning she was. Before he could wonder how she might look with her hair down, Jon went to his easel with the intention of getting straight to work. 

“Good morning,” Daenerys greeted him with a peculiarly cheery smile. “How are you?”

“I've got a headache,” he replied. “Too much ale last night.”

“You got drunk?” She seemed impressed. “I became drunk once. I stole a flask of wine from--”

Jon held his hand up to interrupted her. “Could you speak softer?”

“Sorry,” she whispered, a small smirk playing on her face. She enjoyed being interrupted by him the same way she enjoyed him manipulating her body. No bastard or common man would ever dare of doing either. Any other bastard or common man would be flogged for daring to interrupt her or lay a single finger upon her. But Jon was different somehow. His carelessness with her was stirring. “How is my position?” she asked, knowing perfectly well that she wasn't anywhere near positioned as she should be.

“It's fine.”

She frowned. “Is it perfect?”

“It's fine.”

_Liar._ Daenerys's eyes rolled, and in a fit of defiance, she grew bold. “I did it again last night,” she softly spoke. “With my hand.”

The paintbrush slipped from Jon's fingers, dropping to the table in a quiet clamber. Finally, he trained his eyes on her, but he wore an exasperated expression, as if he was cross with her. “Please, Daenerys. I can't do this today.”

She pouted. “You can't do what?” 

“I can't talk to you about that stuff. I can't touch you. I can barely look at you. Being in the same room as you right now is near impossible. Please, can you just sit still and not say anything?”

She huffed, straightening her back and crossing her arms over her chest. “Are you angry with me?”

“No,” he sighed. 

“Then what's the matter with you?”

“I told you. I've a headache.”

“Well, I'm not going to just sit still and be quite for hours while you paint me with a scowl on your face.” 

“You're being impetuous,” he mumbled. 

“I'm a Princess. I get to be impetuous.” She stood, and marched toward Jon with purpose. 

He leaned back, startled by her action. She swiveled behind him and pressed her hands to his neck. He flinched. “What are you doing?”

Despite his wary tone, Daenerys kept her hands flat on either side of his neck, lightly greased with Summer sweat. “Adjusting you,” she replied, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “Close your eyes.” 

“Daenerys--”

“It's time for you to do as I say,” she gently insisted, so close Jon could feel the breeze of her breath as is whisked past his ear. “Close your eyes.”

Finally, Jon complied, letting his lids flutter shut. A moment later, Daenerys's hands moved, fingers danced across the skin of his neck, and when they found just the right spots, they pressed into the flesh harshly, like it were biscuit dough. 

Jon's gasp of surprise at the pressure quickly morphed into a graveled groan of sheer pleasure. “Gods,” he muttered, dropping his chin forward and relishing in the massage. Her thumbs dug into his muscles in a way that made his entire body limp with relaxation. All worry and ache left his body through Daenerys's skillful fingers, and through such euphoric calm, Jon's cock swelled. 

For several minutes Daenerys kneaded the muscles in Jon's neck until he seemed to lull into a tranquil trance. She stopped then, moving her fingers away, and in a fit of boldness, she leaned in a pressed a ginger kiss beneath his ear. “Do you feel better now?” she whispered.

He turned and gazed at her with parted lips. 

“My mother taught me that,” she explained. “My father gets terrible headaches after he drinks too much, and it always seems to help him. You do feel better now, don't you?”

Indeed, the pain in his skull had vanished. Now the only ache in his body came from his heart, and his cock. “Yes,” he breathed. 

She smiled sweetly and lifted a finger to glide gingerly across his upper lip. “Good. Then you can quit scowling.” With that, she turned on her heel and retook her place upon the sofa. “Now adjust me, Jon. I want to be perfect.”

Chest heaving with desire, Jon stood. He took slow steps toward her, each one a conscious decision to disobey his rational mind. He couldn't. . . He was a bastard, and she a Princess. But as soon as his hands curved around her waist and his eyes connected with her rosy lips, he knew there was no going back. 

The very moment their lips touched, Jon knew it was all over for him. He was in love with her, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. 

His breath hit her tongue, and Daenerys licked it up like a kitten to a saucer of milk. When she felt the tip of Jon's tongue caressing hers, Daenerys thought she may melt into a puddle on the floor. Already, she could feel the moisture seeping from her core to coat her inner petals with dew. She took his face into her hands and whispered her needs against his mouth. “Please, touch me. I need you to discover me.”

“Daenerys,” he breathed a futile warning, but she was already bunching up her skirt. “We have to be quite. Can you come without making a sound?”

“Come?” she whimpered as Jon gliding his palm up her inner thigh. “I can try.”

Jon cupped his hand over her mons, the thin, damp hairs tickling his palm. He stroked her slowly with soft pressure. “If Ser Barristan hears, he'll kill me on the spot.”

Daenerys traced his cheekbone with her thumb. “I won't let him.”

Just as his middle finger dipped between her plump outer lips and into her heat, Jon covered Daenerys's mouth with his, capturing her gasp with a hungry kiss. He climbed over her, pressing his knee into the velvet beside her hip and pushing the other underneath her thigh, keeping her legs spread for him. 

A series of soft whimpers coursed through Daenerys's throat, culminating in little gasps of pleasure against Jon's mouth, as he massaged her clit in slow even strokes. He shushed her between wet kisses, but when his ministrations elicited tiny squeals from her, Jon moved his lips to her ear and pressed his palm over her mouth. 

“Not a sound, Daenerys,” he murmured, his warm breath against Daenerys's ear sending a shiver down her spine. 

She nodded feverishly in response, desperate and needy. Jon dipped a second finger into her wetness, petting her labia and drawing lazy circles around her flexing, virginal hole. 

“Is this how you've been touching yourself at night?” he asked. 

Another nod, her eyes big with excitement. 

Jon caressed her opening. Daenerys rocked her hips upward, desperate to feel his digits penetrate her where nothing else ever had. The desire to be filled by him was all consuming. Her chest heaved. Sweat percolated at the small of her back. “Be honest with me,” he so softly commanded. “When you touch yourself, do you think of me?”

She hesitated for only a moment before deciding there was no point in being bashful now, not with his fingers slipping millimeter by millimeter to where her ultimate passion resided. She nodded resolutely. Had he permitted her to speak, she would have begged him. 'Please, Jon. I need to feel you. Any part of you. Every part of you. I need you inside me.' But his hand remained pressed over her mouth, a safe guard that she knew was necessary, because trying to be silent was proving near impossible. 

Daenerys could hear the contraction of his throat as he swallowed. 

“I've been thinking of you, too.” Just then, he pulled his fingertips from her entrance and glided them back to her raging clit. 

A jerk of her hips signaled a powerful orgasm was mere moments away. Jon's knees kept her thighs apart while he rubbed her slippery nub with feverish enthusiasm. 

Afraid one palm over her mouth would not prevent a scream from reverberating through her throat, Daenerys clamped her own hand atop his. Her eyes rolled back before her lids clamped shut. Her head stretched back, offering her long neck for Jon to kiss and lick. Her legs and cunt spasmed erratically along with her heartbeat. 

Jon did not decide she had had enough until her nails were digging into his sides. Rather than pull his hand away and leave her sweet sex exposed, he cupped her in his palm in a steady, gentle grip. His other hand was wet with condensation from Daenerys's ragged breathing. He didn't move it from her mouth until it evened and her body relaxed. 

“Are you alright?” he asked with genuine concern. 

A bright smile formed on her pink, bee-stung lips, and she gave a cute little giggle to go with that warmed Jon heart to hear. “Thank you,” she murmured.

Jon's first instinct was to smile. How could he not? She was gorgeous, and she was his. But there was the fallacy in their tryst. Daenerys wasn't his, and she never would be. She was a Princess, and he a bastard. She was royalty, and he a servant to the Crown. Her tender _Thank you_ took on a whole other meaning in Jon's head, and his smile quickly downturned. 

Much to Daenerys's dismay, Jon removed his palm from her vagina and walked back to his easel. She nearly protested, but he returned a moment later with an almost-clean cloth. He wiped her essence from his fingers, then used it to gently sop up the slimy wetness from between Daenerys's legs. When finished, Jon tucked the cloth into the pocket of his trousers. 

Daenerys sat up, looking from his eyes down to the noticeable bulge that strained the laces of his trousers. She lifted her fingers to the knot. 

“You don't need to do that, Princess,” Jon told her, taking her wrists into his hands. 

“And you don't need to call me Princess,” she retorted with a smirk in her eye. 

“That's what you are,” he replied soberly. “You're a Princess. I'm a bastard.”

“I don't care.”

“I do.”

Silence enveloped them. Daenerys stood, their bodies so close she could feel his clothed erection graze her abdomen. One hand upon his neck and the other softly palming his needy cock, Daenerys whispered, “I want to feel you. I want to touch you.”

These words were all Jon wanted to hear since the moment he laid eyes on the young Princess. These damned words. They would surely be the end of him. Eyes locked deeply into hers, Jon untied the laces which constricted his cock from full growth, and mere moments later, the raging muscle was bared to Daenerys. 

She looked down between them, and Jon half expected her to faint at the sight of such a strange looking organ, pink from the blood which swelled inside it, weeping a teardrop of clear pre-ejaculate from the flared mushroom head. But she did not faint, nor did she jump with fear or laugh with uncertainty. She said not a word as she gazed at his engorged penis. And then her fingers took gentle hold as if to test it's weight in her hand. He almost came in that very moment, but held himself together for the sake of his pride. 

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, resting his cheek atop her head. “Stroke it,” he breathed into her hair. “Slowly.” 

The Princess immediately obeyed, firming her grip and gliding it up the stiff stem and over the moist head, then back down again. Repeat. Jon was good at not making a sound, but Daenerys could gauge his reactions by the fast thumping of his heartbeat close to her ear as her cheek rested against his solid chest. She wished they were alone – truly alone – so that she could hear him moan and whimper from her touch. 

As Jon leaked more droplets from his urethra, his cock became slippery in Daenerys's grasp, and her pace quickened easily. His body flooded with the tell tale signs that he would soon come. 

“Daenerys,” he breathed, but his mind couldn't come up with the right sort of warning – the right sort of instruction. “D—Dany.” 

She stroked ever faster and Jon's knees were quickly turning to jelly. As he felt the pressure in his scrotum begin to bubble over, he dipped his own hand between them and covered the head of his cock just before a shock of semen jolted from the tip. 

Finally a whimper of pleasure from his throat. It sent a tingle down to Daenerys's sex. A creamy fluid coated the hand still wrapped securely around the stem of Jon's cock. When it was over, she released him and examined the substance. Not clear like her own wetness but rather an opaque white. 

Jon pulled the cloth from his pocket, wiped the semen from his palm then Daenerys's, and returned it to his pocket. He then shoved his cock back into his trousers and laced them back up proper. 

“I didn't know sex was so messy,” mused Daenerys. 

A blush spread across Jon's face. He hadn't been handled in that fashion by a girl since being able to grow hair on his face, but with Daenerys it was the most exhilarating experience in all his twenty years. “This can't happen again,” he warned her. “You know that, right?”

Yes, she knew that indeed. But at the same time, she knew she wouldn't be able to keep her hands to herself around Jon now that she knew how amazing it felt to have her hands on him. 

“We should get back to it, before Ser Barristan comes in and wonders why no progress has been made on the portrait.” Jon turned back to the easel. 

“Jon.”

He turned back to see a sweetly sinister smile upon Daenerys's face. “How was I?”

He breathed a chuckle. “You were--”

“Perfect?” she asked. 

“More than.”


	4. Chapter 4

_More than,_ he'd said. 

More than perfect. 

Daenerys walked to her daily appointment in the study with a skip in her step. She had taken an extra long bath the night before, soaking her skin in lavender oils so that Jon might smell it on her skin as he kissed her. She had touched herself underneath the water til climax, in part so that she could tell Jon how she had done it, how she had been thinking of him the whole while, of his dark knowing eyes, his full lips, his rough charcoal stained hands, his hard chest, his thick cock.

How would he touch her today, she wondered. Would he bury his fingers within her this time? His cock?

No. . . She shook the fantasy from her mind. In less than two weeks time she would be betrothed. Not long after that, she would be married. Perhaps her future mate would not notice that another man had sampled her treasure before him, but he would certainly notice if another man had stolen the treasure all together. But oh how Daenerys wanted Jon to steal hers.

Ser Barristan stood before the study door when Daenerys arrived and immediately informed her of the change in plans. "No painting today, Princess."

Her heart seized, wondering if someone had discovered her and Jon's clandestine activities. But then the man continued.

"Your mother wishes you present as she tours the city's orphanages."

"Cannot Viserys accompany her?"

"The Prince is already been bid to attend."

She frowned. "What about Jon?"

The knight cocked an eyebrow. "He has already been notified that there will be no meeting today."

"The portrait, though. It needs to be finished by--"

"Daenerys!" called out her mother's voice from within the study, startling Daenerys from her fit.

"Mother?" She stepped into the study to see Rhaella standing before the easel, looking upon the portrait. Her expression was unreadable.

Daenerys came to her mother's side and looked at the half finished artwork. From the waist up, her portrait was nearly finished, her eyes illuminated in lilac paint.

"He's talented," spoke Rhaella approvingly. "He's really managed to capture your beauty."

It was surreal to see her own face looking back at her in this way, but Daenerys decided she agreed with her mother. Jon had made her look beautiful, and Daenerys wondered if that had something to do with Jon genuinely believing her to be beautiful.

* * * * *

Pressing charcoal to parchment, Jon sketched a young boy playing swords with a stone wall. The child swiped at the stone with a long, blunt stick like he was a real knight. Jon had wanted to be a knight too when he was a child. He wanted to be a Ranger in the Night's Watch at one point as well, before he realized the true nature of the organization, and the true nature of most of the "recruits."

Either knight or Ranger, Jon's oaths would never permit him to marry or to have children of his own. It was his desire for both those things which steered him away from knighthood and the Watch. Oh the irony that he would fall for a woman he could never marry, and could never have children with.

A parade of workmen marched between Jon and his subject. They all carried large crates of grain and veg. Mules trotted behind them, hauled down with golden dishes and ivory linens.

"What's all this for?" Jon asked one of the younger workers.

"The ball," replied the lad, winded from the exertion. "For the Princess Daenerys."

Ah yes. . . The reminder struck Jon like a quick kick to the chest. Not only could Jon never marry Daenerys, he would have to give her up so that another could have her hand in marriage and give her the life Jon longed so much to be able to provide her. He wouldn't be able to stand it. Not at first. But perhaps with time he would cope. Perhaps one day he would find another woman who could make his heart leap from his chest at the very thought of her. Perhaps. But one thing Jon could never live with would be for Daenerys to be handed to a man who would treat her with disgrace. The likes of Ramsay Bolton, Joffrey Lannister, or even Theon Greyjoy possessing his sweet Princess made his spine tease, his gut churn, and his fists clench.

Jon discarded his current sketch and retrieved a fresh parchment. He spent the next half hour running through his head every unwed Lord he had ever encountered, recalling their personalities and any odd quirks and strange habits they possessed. He eventual had a list of five names scrawled out. The names of the most decent Lords he knew, and each one he would rather punch square in the jaw than see marry his love. But Jon knew these five men would be good to her. They would never raise a hand to her, never force themselves upon her whether sober or drunk, never manipulate her for sport or abuse her sensibilities. His eyes swam in self-deprecation as Jon scribbled a sixth name upon the parchment. The most difficult name to write, but the list would not be complete without the name of his Lord brother, Robb Stark, the most decent young man Jon knew.

* * * * *

The Mother's Orphanage in Flea Bottom always looked so large to Daenerys whenever she would happen upon it, which was not often since Princesses seldom had business traversing the slums of King's Landing. Perhaps it was only because the beige stone structure was juxtaposed against the little shacks that lined the street. Perhaps it were the steeples pointed up toward the sky and the large Star of the Seven hung above the front doors that gave the Orphanage a domineering quality. 

On the inside, Daenerys realized how minuscule the building was. The entire property would fit into the Great Hall in the Red Keep. Daenerys's bed chambers were larger than the courtyard where some thirty children ate their lunches of brown soup and bread crusts. Each child was small. In height and in width. 

“We can keep 'em 'ere til they're nine,” said Sister Jayne to Queen Rhaella while the women looked out upon the children from a cut-out window. 

“What happens when they are nine?” asked Daenerys. Rhaella turned and gave her a look like the question was silly. Daenerys supposed it was silly, but she asked anyway, optimistic that the answer would not be so grim as it was. 

“They must leave,” replied Sister Jayne. “We haven't the space for older children. The boys are sent to apprentice for tradesmen around the city. If no one wants them, they'll be given to the Watch. The girls are sent to work in taverns, inns, brothels, or if they're lucky, a family'll take 'em in as a housemaid or nanny for their own children.”

“You would sent a nine year old girl to a brothel?” Daenerys asked with an anger behind her eyes. 

“Daenerys,” Rhaella warned. 

Viserys snickered. “How else are the brothel owners going to keep this one coming back?” He cast a smirk at one of their escorts, a Gold Cloak by the name of Sandor Clegane, better know as the Hound. He was a great big man, and while Viserys got a kick out of poking fun at the massive creature, Daenerys found him utterly terrifying. Oh how she hoped Viserys was only jesting. It was always hard to tell, for the Hound rarely acknowledged the Prince's words. He stood tall, steady, and silent. Nothing seemed to faze him. 

Rhaella followed Sister Jayne into the courtyard to meet some of the children, and Daenerys followed her mother. Viserys stayed inside, muttering something about the children smelling of goat dung. The Queen did her duty, stooping down and making cooing small talk with a few of the little boys – because those little boys may be smiths, stonemasons, or sailors one day, and the Crown needs support from tradesmen just as it needs support from Lords and Ladies. 

But Daenerys was less driven by duty. Her heart tended to guide her actions, and her heart guided her toward a little girl huddled in the corner of the yard. Daenerys could not tell her age. All these children looked younger than she supposed they were on account of under-nourishment, thin with sunken cheeks greased with dirt. This girl had dirt all over her, so much that her skin looked a rusty brown. She wore no shoes and her dress was too large, the straps hanging off her shoulders and the skirt black and tattered at the bottom from where it would drag along the ground while the girl walked. Her knees were up to protect the lunch in her lap, and she ate with her head down, shoveling food into her mouth at a steady rate. 

It was not only pity which pulled Daenerys toward this girl. It was that, under all the grime, the girl's long veil of hair was a familiar silver. Daenerys knelt before the girl and reached out. The girl flinched as Daenerys's fingers touched her fine hair, slightly snarled. “What's your name?” she asked. 

The girl looked up and blinked round lavender eyes at Daenerys. “Jenny Waters.”

Daenerys's heart felt like lead in her chest. Gravity threatened to pull her forward, to envelope the girl in her arms and carry her back to the Red Keep. Daenerys had long stopped asking her mother for a sister, but now it turned out she already had one. Or perhaps this girl was not her father's bastard, but her eldest brother's, or maybe even Viserys's. Either way, Daenerys already loved her. _You're mine,_ she wanted to tell little Jenny Waters. _If no one will claim you, I will._

“Daenerys,” spoke her mother's voice before Daenerys could move a muscle. She hated her mother for her cold tone. Couldn't she see that this was no ordinary bastard? Couldn't she see that Jenny was a Targaryen? 

On their way out of the Orphanage, Daenerys overheard her mother speak one last thing to Sister Jayne. “Lady Mooton has been looking to train a new handmaiden for her daughter. I want the purple-eyed bastard girl sent to Maidenpool at once. On orders of the Crown.”

Daenerys smiled, heart still in a fracture over the poor girl, but slowly mending with pride over her Queen Mother's kindness. 

It was not long before Daenerys's mind shifted back to focus on another bastard she had recently met. 

She had gone almost nineteen years without laying eyes on Jon Snow, and yet, one day without him felt like torture. She used to love sitting in the Great Hall, watching as the workers set up for a lavish ball and feast. The whole thing enchanted her so. No longer. There was nothing about a betrothal which excited her now. Not even a sweet, dashing young Lord musky from a hunt would tantalize her senses after Jon had completely ravished them. No Lord could ever give Daenerys what she truly wanted, because all she truly wanted was Jon, and he was no Lord. 

For the first time in her youthful life, Daenerys cursed being a Princess. Oh that she were a common girl or a bastard, too. Growing up the way little Jenny was would have been difficult, but Daenerys thought she could survive any amount of adversity if it would somehow lead her into Jon's arm. 

“It'll be a grand affair, Princess,” spoke Ser Barristan's graveled voice. He stood beside her now, having come up to the balcony to check on her. He was dressed as he usually was in his golden armor and cream colored cape that hung down to his ankles. 

Moisture pooled beneath Daenerys's eyelids. She sniffled to keep them at bay, then croaked out a meek, “Quite.”

She stood, pinching her skirts up as she made her way to the East Tower and up to the study for her appointment with Jon. It was such a strange feeling to see Jon again, sitting at his easel, mixing paints as if nothing had transpired at all between them the other day. The sight of his gray eyes, his mop of dark hair, his fair skin and pouted lips only saddened her further, for all she could think in that moment was how she wished to spend the rest of her life staring into those eyes, running her fingers through his curls, pressing her cheek to his skin and kissing his mouth. 

“Are you alright, Princess?” he asked, voice low and lilting with concern. She looked dreadful. Stunning, but dreadful. It pinched his heart sharply. He feared the worst from her solemn expression. 

“I wish you wouldn't call me that. Not today,” Daenerys quietly replied, turning away from him to sit upon the sofa, not even trying to put an elegance to her stature. 

“What would you like me to call you?”

Eyes on a patch of stone flooring beside Jon's foot, Daenerys answered, “I liked it when you called me Dany. Only my family ever calls me that, and only when they aren't cross with me.”

Jon set down his paints so that the weakness in his limbs would not cause them to tumble. He hadn't even realized until this moment that he had called her such a pet name during their session of passionate abandon. “Dany--” The name left his lips like a gust of Summer air sweeping across the room to brush at Daenerys's cheek. 

“You've ruined me.”

The statement carried Jon off his stool, but anxiousness kept his feet from closing the distance between them. “No,” he protested. He could not live with the notion that he had damaged her in any way, that he had done anything at all to hurt her. “You're not ruined. No one will ever know. Whomever you marry, he'll never know.”

“Oh, Jon.” She released a sigh that bled melancholy. “That is the least of my worries.”

Jon's brows furrowed, his feet chancing a few steps toward her. “What is the matter, then, if not that?”

It took her a moment to speak. A moment to come up with the right string of words to describe the awful, wonderful feeling in the hollow of her belly. Soon, her lips parted and she confessed, just above a whisper, “I don't want to marry any Lord.”

Before the tear drop could make it from her eyelid to her cheek, Jon was before her, wrapping her up in his mighty grip, holding her to his chest like he never wanted to let go. Daenerys dug her fingertips into his back, drawing him ever closer until he was on the sofa with her, pressed to her, and breathing deeply the scent of her hair. 

When Daenerys calmed, Jon remained, stroking the backs of his knuckles down the side of her face and pressing little kisses to her lips and chin. Hands playing idly with the strings of his tunic, Daenerys studied Jon's face like this would be the last time they would ever see one another. 

“Tell me what to do,” she whispered. “Whatever you say, I'll do.”

“There's nothing you can do. A Princess must marry, and a Princess cannot marry a bastard.”

“Then stop being a bastard,” she whined. “Or, I'll stop being a Princess.”

Jon smiled, then kissed her slow, savoring every moment of his lips pressed to hers. After, he kissed her again, this time parting his lips enough to invite her tongue between them. She tasted sweetly of lemon tea. Daenerys rested down on her back, one hand on Jon's neck and the other on his hip, guiding him on top of her. His body covered her with a secure, comforting pressure, like being bundled up tightly before a warm fire. She could feel the muscle in his trousers pulse against her hip as she suckled his bottom lip. 

Jon's calloused palms glided up her belly until he found her breast. The thin silk material of her dress did little to disguise the sensation of his rough fingers massaging circles around her areola. A whimper escaped her lips. When Jon's hand made it's way beneath the silk to gently pinch and caress her hardened nipple, Daenerys pushed her hips upward, cunt wet and hungry for attention. She hooked a leg around Jon's hip and urged him to divert some of this overwhelming pressure to her loins. 

All the blood from Jon's head rushed down to his cock so quickly he forgot about every reason they shouldn't be doing what they're doing. He pressed his crotch to hers, gyrating back and forth til he could feel her wetness staining the fabric of his trousers. 

“Gods, yes,” Daenerys moaned. 

Dropping his lips to her ear, Jon breathed, “Be silent, Dany, and I'll let you come.”

“Please,” she whimpered, hands dipping between them to tug loose the laces that confined Jon's erection.

He swallowed down a groan of pleasure as he rubbed his swollen cock against Daenerys's sex. He couldn't penetrate her. Jon retained just enough good sense to remember that. But just the sensation of his most private part connecting with hers would be more than enough to finish him off. 

Jon gave her little nipple a pinch as he shushed her. “Not a sound, or we have to stop.” But Jon had no intention of stopping. The only thing that could keep him from guiding Daenerys into orgasm would be at her insistence to stop, and that scenario did not seem likely. 

As a shuddered breath escaped her lips, Daenerys nodded. She never had to say 'please' anyway. Jon could see the pleading in her half-lidded eyes. Jon moved his hips with greater purpose, the length of his cock gliding across her clit in perfect rhythm. His scrotum fell free of his trousers, giving Daenerys's slick cunt lips a pat each time he thrust his hips forward. 

Daenerys clawed short nails into Jon's back, and she tucked her mouth against the muscle in his shoulder, suctioning his skin between her lips, and when her body began to ripple and quake with ecstasy, she bit down on his salty flesh. 

The joy of Daenerys's orgasm was not hers alone. Jon relished in the feel of her writhing in pleasure beneath him, and it only served to drive him closure to the edge. As Daenerys's limbs trembled in the aftershocks of her climax, Jon reached his hand between them and stroked himself until his cock erupted, releasing thin ropes of semen onto Daenerys's mound, decorating her silver pubic hair with white cream. 

They shared a moment together, simply gazing into one another's eyes before Daenerys broke into a fit of silent giggles, a big smile stretching upon her face. It was infectious. Jon couldn't help but smile back before kissing her once more. 

He then stood, walking back to the table where his paints sat to retrieve a fresh cloth. He wiped his softening cock, then fastened his trousers back up. He came back to Daenerys with the cloth, cleaned her of both their fluids, then straightened her skirt. 

“Lay with me,” she insisted, reaching her hand out to him. “For a minute at least.”

Jon did as his Princess commanded, crawling onto his side and taking her into his arms. He tried so desperately to contain his sorrow, for he did not want Daenerys to catch it. Oh how he wanted that smile to remain upon her face for as long as he lived. 

But her smile did soon fall. “What will you do when the portrait is finished?”

“I don't know,” he murmured. He didn't even want to think about it. “Go back North I suppose.”

“What's it like in the North? I was there once as a little girl, but I don't think I remember one thing about it.”

“It's cold,” he answered. “And wet.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Why would you want to go back to someplace cold and wet?”

Jon pressed a chaste kiss to her lips which she immediately reciprocated. “Because it's beautiful there. Granted, it is it's own type of beautiful, but beautiful nonetheless. Because it's so wet, the grass is always tall and green, as far as the eye can see. The forests are dense and lush. The streams are always filled with clear water. And the cold isn't so bad either. I miss the feel of a raging hearth beside my bed at night.”

“That does sound awfully nice.”

“If I could take you with me, I would.”

Her frown deepened. “Don't say that.”

“I mean it. If I had a castle, I would steal you away and keep you safe there forever. My banner-men would protect us from anyone who dared try to separate us,” he insisted, pressing another kiss to her mouth. “But I won't stay in the North for long. I want to travel for a while. See the parts of the world others rarely do. Essos. I'd love to traverse the free cities.”

A glimmer returned to Daenerys's eye. “I've always wanted to see Pentos. My father always said he would take me, but it never happened. He only ever travels to Essos for business, seldom at that.”

“I'm sure your new husband will take you,” Jon said, tracing her lips with two fingers. “Perhaps we'll run into each other there.”

Why did Jon have to mention Daenerys's impending betrothed, whomever he may end up being? Daenerys pouted, her eyes misting at the thought. She did not want to go to Pentos under the cloak of a pampered Lord. She wanted to go with Jon. Her lips parted and nipped his fingertips with her teeth. Her little warning only enticed Jon, though. He dipped his middle and pointer fingers between her teeth and down the slope of her tongue. Daenerys closed her lips around the digits and swirled her tongue around them, sucking mildly. 

Jon gulped, his cock stirring despite his recent ejaculation. He dragged his fingers back slowly until they left her mouth with a little _pop._

“I should get back to the canvas,” Jon sadly said. He removed himself from his love, but her sweet voice interrupted him on his way across the room. 

“Can I come see you tonight?” asked Daenerys. “I need to be with you alone. Truly alone.”

“Dany--”

“Just once,” she begged. “You'll be finished soon, and I'll most likely never see you again after you've gone. If I must belong to a Lord for the rest of my life, at least let me belong to you for just one night.”

The request seemed so gentle as it left Daenerys's mouth. She was sat up on the sofa now, looking at Jon with such care. It was not only an erotic proposal she made. It was not only his cock Daenerys yearned for, it was everything. It was Jon himself. 

How could he ever refuse such a request? But he knew, even as he nodded in agreement, that it was a mistake, and that it would not be just once. If Jon took his time, it would be another three days before the portrait was complete. He would have three days to love Daenerys enough to last him forever.


	5. Chapter 5

Jon did not know how Daenerys was going to be able to visit him, and he wondered if she was being too optimistic when she had assured him she had a way of getting out of her chamber and through the halls at night without notice. Jon had assumed a Princess's bed chambers would be guarded throughout the night, but perhaps he was mistaken. Just in case, he stayed up, sketching the objects in his chamber by candlelight well past when he would typically turn in. 

Eventually, there was a soft wrapping at his door, so soft he hardly heard it over the crackling of candle wicks. 

Sure enough, his blushing beauty had come to see him, wrapped in a heavy dark cloak that covered her body down to her ankles and concealed her silver hair. A big, bright smile dominated Daenerys's face at the sight of Jon. He hurriedly ushered her inside before a night guard could spot them and grow curious. 

“Dany,” Jon greeted her with a look of surprise. 

Daenerys jumped into his arms and pecked his lips. “You doubted me.”

“I did,” Jon admitted, “and I am elated to be proven wrong.” 

“Sometimes I go out to the battlements to watch the sunrise over the horizon. No one has caught me yet.”

Jon fisted his hand in her hair and brought their mouths together in a devilish kiss. It wasn't long before he had her whimpering against his lips. He wouldn't have to shush her now. Not here. He took her to his bed, lumpier than the plush velvet sofa, but it would do. 

“This is where they put you?” Daenerys asked with an icky expression, finally taking in the scenery of Jon's temporary abode. 

“It's fine,” he said, tucking her underneath him. He attached his mouth to her neck and nibbled the flesh. 

“Jon,” she giggled. “You're going ruin to the surprise.” Daenerys crawled from the bed to stand beside it, facing Jon. 

He gazed up at her curiously. She looked radiant, even in that heavy cloak. Her hair was down in buoyant waves, and her skin glowed in the candlelight. “What surprise?”

Bottom lip tucked nervously between her teeth, Daenerys brought her hands to the iron clasp keeping her cloak secured below her neck and unfastened it. Daenerys set the clasp upon the bedside table, just beside Jon's direwolf coin pendant. Her movements were all slow, fluid and deliberate. She hooked her fingers in the hem of her cloak and pushed the heavy fabric from her shoulders until it was cascading to the dusty floor in a heap. A little hop, then another, and Daenerys's slippers were kicked to the side and she stood two inches shorter. Jon's petite lover now stood in only her night shift, a white linen dress so flimsy Jon could make out the silhouette of her curves through the porous cloth. He could see the discoloration where pink nipples interrupted the pale flesh of her breasts. They poked at the fabric, hard as rocks. Daenerys bent to lift her shift, but Jon stopped her. 

Jon stood from the bed and circled behind her. He ran his fingers up the length of her arms, feeling her gooseflesh. He scooped up her hair and carried it over one shoulder, baring one side of her neck. He kissed her there. More tender than a minute before. Little close-mouth kisses from shoulder to jaw, then back down again. 

Daenerys's chest heaved, her heart racing at these simple ministrations.

Jon dipped his arms down and grasped the bottom hem of her shift. He dragged it up, exposing to the night air her thighs, hips and bottom, her belly, back and breasts. He pulled the linen up over her head, then tossed it to a chair in the corner. He held her to him, arms snaking around her to run the expanse of her torso, to toy with her breasts in his palms, to caress each nipple beneath his thumbs. 

“Jon,” breathed Daenerys, head lulling back against his shoulder. She took hold of one of his hands and pushed it down, down, down until his fingers tangled in the short wisps of hair above her cleft.

He cupped her sex gently, massaging her outer lips. Against her ear, Jon murmured, “You're already wet for me.”

With a sensual sigh, Daenerys wiggled her round bottom against the stiff bulge in Jon's pants. 

Jon took her hips and spun her around so he could look upon her stunning body, so supple and so ripe for the taking. His gaze glued to her breasts. He cupped one and leaned his head down, capturing a taunt nipple between his lips. 

Daenerys shuddered a gasp, lacing her fingers through his hair and arching her back into the feel of his mouth suckling at the sensitive flesh. He swiped his tongue across the little nub, then suckled some more. 

“Jon,” breathed Daenerys again, body shivering. “Please.”

Jon pinched her nipple between his teeth and gave a little tug, eliciting a high pitched whimper from Daenerys's throat. She took his face in her hands and pried him from her breast, fearful that she would climax before getting him undressed. 

Daenerys tugged the hem of Jon's tunic up until his torso was bare to her. Three coin sized scars adorned his lean body, obscuring the deliciousness of his muscles and smooth flesh. Daenerys brushed each one with the pad of a finger. 

“What happened?” she asked. 

“It was nothing really,” Jon replied, bringing her mouth to his for a hungry kiss. 

But Daenerys wasn't satiated by his passive response. She leaned back. “What happened?”

“It was a few years ago. It doesn't matter now.” He tried to kiss her again. 

“Tell me who hurt you.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“I'll have their heads,” she persisted. 

“She's already dead,” replied Jon, silencing Daenerys finally. Her lips sealed in a line, and when Jon pressed a kiss to them, they did not pucker for him. “Dany,” he whispered. 

“I'll never hurt you,” she insisted. “Not ever.”

“Dany,” he stroked the back of his finger down the side of her face, “you're the only person in this world capable of hurting me.”

She frowned, but Jon quickly kissed it away, and as soon as Daenerys was kissing him back, Jon unfastened his trousers and pushed them down his legs, kicking them away with his bare feet. He took his Princess in his arms, pressing their nakedness together. His cock pulsed between them. With every little movement they made, the flared head grazed Daenerys's navel. She could feel a bead of pre-ejaculate disperse against her skin. 

Lust took over. Daenerys stood up on her toes. Anything to shift his cock closer to her sex. Large hands gripped her butt and pulled them closure together. 

“Please,” she whimpered between kisses, a string of saliva connecting their bottom lips. 

“Please what?” Jon asked, kneading her plush bottom as he moved his hips against hers. “What do you want me to do?”

Daenerys panted from the lust enveloping her, setting her skin ablaze. “Please,” she spoke again. “I want you inside me.”

The one thing he couldn't do. He could ravish her body til the sun came up, but he couldn't consummate his love for her the way a man does his wife. Oh that she could be his wife, then he would be the happiest man alive, but that honor would go to another, on another night. 

Jon caught her mouth in another series of wet, heated kisses as he slid his hand down between them, bypassing his cock for Daenerys's cunt. He wasted no time, gliding two fingers through her moist labia until he felt a gentle resistance at her opening. Nothing had ever crossed this threshold. Jon doubted her future husband would notice if he knocked on the door a bit. 

Daenerys sucked in a sharp inhale as Jon pressed his middle finger upward, teasing her channel gently to the second knuckle. Her inner muscles constricted, and when he swiped his thumb over her clit simultaneously, Daenerys's gasp dissolved into a moan. 

He walked her back, then lowered her to the bed. She sat with her thighs apart, head craned upward to keep their mouths connected while Jon manipulated her cunt. He pressed a second finger in with the first and dug them both in to the hilt. With his fingers massaging her inner walls and his thumb caressing her slippery clit, Daenerys was a trembling mess already. 

“Please, please, please,” she chanted breathlessly. Now unable to focus on anything but her pleasure, Daenerys dropped her back to the mattress, her eyes squeezed shut and her muscles flexing. “Pleeeeease, Jon.”

Jon crawled on top of her and latched his mouth to her breast, suckling her flesh and flicking her nipple with his tongue. Oh how he loved not needing to shush her. With the hand not preoccupied stimulating Daenerys's sex to the brink of orgasm, Jon gripped his cock and began pumping. 

“Jon! Please!” 

Nails dug into his shoulders; Jon relished the pain. He switched to her other nipple, paying it the same attention. By the time the night was through, he wanted Daenerys's skin covered with his saliva. 

A final gasp and the arching of her back signaled Daenerys's climax. A series of whimpers and groans followed as her body quaked and spasmed for a good minute straight as Jon never ceased his ministrations, on her or himself. He masturbated them both until he felt his cock erupt. He pressed his forehead to Daenerys's chest and huffed a few low groans as he milked semen from his cock and onto Daenerys's hip. After the final spurt, Jon collapsed atop her, heart pounding in his chest. Daenerys stroked her fingers through his hair, gently massaging his scalp. 

“I love you,” she breathed. 

Jon picked his head up, startled by the admission. He gazed into her eyes, studying them for some hint that she was jesting, but all he saw was a woman in love. He pried his hands from their organs and cupped her face before kissing her. She giggled against his mouth. 

“Ew,” she whined through a smile, peeling one of Jon's hands from her cheek, the one slick with her come. 

A blush spread across his cheeks, and he leaned down to kiss away the fluid from her face. He whispered a quiet, “I'm sorry, my love,” into her ear. 

Gods did she taste divine. Just this little sample wasn't enough. Jon trailed his kisses down her neck, past the valley between her breasts, over her little belly, until he slid from the bed, knees settling to the rough floor. He'd endure the pain. It was a small price to pay for all he would enjoy of his Princess. 

“Jon?” breathed Daenerys, watching him curiously. Did he really want to see her so close up? Daenerys herself had never even peaked at what her treasure looked like. 

Jon peeled open her thighs and settled between them. The scent of her sex ravaged his senses, drawing him closer. He rested the tip of his nose just above her cleft, nestled in her soft fur, and inhaled deeply. Daenerys shivered on the exhale. 

“Jon,” she sighed contently. 

He wet his lips, then kissed her pink petals, wetting them even more. He poked his tongue out to trace the delicate flesh. Daenerys's thighs trembled. 

“What are you doing?” she murmured, hand rested behind Jon's head. 

“Tasting my Princess,” he replied just before touching his tongue to her swollen clit. 

Daenerys gasped softly. “What does she taste like?”

Jon locked eyes with her as he slithered the whole length of his tongue inside her channel, dragging out a mouthful of her honey. He crawled over her and pressed his mouth to hers, immediately sweeping his tongue inside her mouth and delivering her a sample of her own sweetness. When he parted from her, she looked as if the air had been snatched from her lungs, and then she swallowed. 

“I want to taste you now,” she said. 

Jon swiped his thumb across her bottom lip, finding himself utterly obsessed with her mouth and all she was willing to do with it. “You will,” he replied. “But I want you to come for me first.”

“Again?”

He smiled, then slide back down her body to regain his position on the floor, just between her legs and with the perfect angle at which to devour her pretty little cunt. He leaned forward, taking his time. It had only been a few minutes since her first orgasm of the night. Jon didn't want to rush her into another before her body was ready. 

Jon took to teasing her channel first, swirling his tongue around her entrance. He captured her labia between his lips and suckled gently. He breathed against her clit through puckered lips, then suckled that as well. Nothing got quite as big of a reaction from Daenerys as when Jon suckled her clit. He started soft, then steadily increased the pressure. When her hips began to buck, he pressed them down to the mattress with his palms and pinched her clit between his teeth as he had done with her nipple. 

This caused a squeal to ripple past Daenerys's lips and her thighs to close around Jon's head. He separated from her long enough to take her thighs and pin them down, keeping her spread and ready to be devoured. 

“Please,” she begged, staring up at him with purple doe eyes. “I feel it.”

“You're going to come?” Jon asked, needing to hear it from her lips. 

“Yes,” she breathed. “Please. I'm going to come.”

Jon looked down at her sex and how it pulsed hungrily. He stroked a finger through her wetness. “You most certainly are.”

“Please.”

Jon knelt once more and opened his mouth over her cunt. He wasn't going slow anymore, and he wasn't being soft. 

Daenerys could hardly breathe from all he was doing to her. Her lungs expanded and contracted heavily within her chest, but she was so dizzy from the pleasure, she wondered if any air was reaching her brain at all. Her hips gyrated against Jon's frantic tongue and suctioning lips. Her thigh muscles spasmed under his grasp. 

“Oh, Gods,” she moaned. “Yes. Yes. Yes. I feel it, Jon!”

Jon could feel it too. She was mere moments from orgasm. He grazed his teeth against her clit to end her suffering. Her sharp gasp filled the space around them, morphing quickly into a low groan as her second climax of the night coursed through her body like an electric shock. Jon tried to hold her hips down long enough to pleasure her through her orgasm, but eventually the stimuli became too much for her body to take and Daenerys had to twist away from his mouth and clamp her thighs tightly together, curling into the fetal position.

Jon stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His cock was rock hard and already leaking a droplet of clear lubricant. He crawled behind Daenerys, embraced her, and pressed his erection to her lower back. She shook in his arms, breathing soft now, but still erratic. Jon smoothed the hair from her face and pressed a kiss to the back of her ear. “Are you alright?” he whispered. 

She did not respond for a good minute at least. Eventually, her body calmed and she turned in Jon's arms. She immediately attached her mouth to his, kissing him deeply and tasting herself on his tongue. “Thank you,” she murmured. 

Jon cocked an eyebrow. “Don't say that. It makes me feel like I've done you a favor.”

“Haven't you?”

He chuckled. “And why do you always say please? You don't have to do that.”

Her face reddened bashfully. Naked, pressed against his cock, and recovering from two orgasms, and yet she can still manage to feel embarrassed by something. “I don't know why I say it. Maybe I want to be polite.”

Jon laughed harder, tucking his face in the crook of her neck. 

“You enjoy it, though,” Daenerys said. “I can tell.”

Jon picked up his head. “You can?”

She nodded, pressing her mouth again to his. Daenerys couldn't get enough of Jon's mouth. She wanted it all over her, kissing her every inch of skin. But there was something she wanted more than even that. She lifted a knee onto Jon's hip and reached down between them until her hand found his thickened cock. He moaned into her mouth when she stroked it, milking some fresh lubricant from the tip. And then she pressed it downward, aiming the head at her entrance. 

“Dany,” moaned Jon. 

She pressed him to her, his cockhead nestling between her folds. 

“Dany,” he said with more urgency, reaching down to halt Daenerys's hand from driving his penis through her channel. 

“Please,” she begged with a pouted bottom lip. 

Gods, she was right. How he loved it when she said _please._ But his good sense won out over his lust and eagerness to please her. “I thought you wanted to taste me,” he said. 

A little smirk replaced her pout. “I want both.”

“You can have one.” He brought her hand up between them and kissed her knuckles. “And I want you to taste me.”

“Tell me how.”

“It's easy.” He kissed her lips once more. “Get on your knees.”

Daenerys quickly obeyed, picking herself up and settling her knees into the mattress, butt on her heels. Jon scooted back to lie flat with his head upon his lumpy pillow. He opened his legs and pointed to the space between them. “Come here.”

Dutifully, Daenerys crawled between his thighs. “Here?”

He nodded. The sight of her covered his arms in goosepimples – the way she licked her lips when her eyes fell to his erect penis, resting flat across his abdomen. 

“Come here,” he said once more, extending his hand toward her. 

Daenerys leaned downward, and Jon slid his palm to rest at the back of her head, gently guiding her further and further until her body was in a crumple and her nose brushed the thick vein running lengthwise the underside of his cock. 

She wanted to tease him the way he did her, but she wasn't quite sure how. _Go slow_ her mind told her. She rested her palms on his muscular thighs dusted with little black hairs. There was even more hair on his scrotum where his balls hung taunt, aching for relief. Daenerys pressed her lips to one hairy globe, then the other. 

Jon scooped up all her hair and held it up behind her head the way Irri had held her hair as she vomited on that one night she got drunk off her father's wine. Daenerys tilted her head up to look at Jon questioningly. She hated being so naive, but this was still such a brand new body part to her, and the only one of it's kind she had ever touched or looked upon this closely. 

“Lick me,” he breathed. 

Daenerys parted her lips and tilted her head back down. She ran her tongue along that thick, pulsing vein and Jon released a quiet groan of pleasure. She did it again, this time swiping her tongue all the way up to the flared head. She tasted a salty fluid on her tongue and smiled. 

“Dany.”

She looked up, but rather than finish his request, Jon gripped his cock in one hand and lifted it until the tip touched Daenerys's bottom lip. Her lips puckered and she kissed it tenderly like she would kiss the tips of Jon's fingers. She poked her tongue out and swirled it around the pinhole opening where Jon's fluids would come out. 

Another quiet groan rumbled through Jon's throat. “Dany,” he said again. “Open your mouth for me.”

She complied, parting her lips enough to completely encase the head of Jon's cock within her mouth, then repeated the swirling motion with her tongue. 

“Fuck, Dany,” Jon moaned, eyes glued to her and her ministrations. “That's perfect. Stroke me while you do that.”

Daenerys quickly replaced Jon's hand around his cock and begun to glide her fist up and down his engorged stem while she slurped at the head. Drool spilled from her mouth, making it easier to stroke him. She tasted more fluid in her mouth, but there wasn't enough for it to be his semen, and Daenerys was dying to discover what Jon's fresh seed tasted like. She quickened her strokes and even ducked her head down lower, taking nearly half of his manhood into her mouth. She felt the tip graze her throat, and she pulled back up before her gag reflex was triggered. 

“Do that again, Dany,” Jon begged through uneven breaths. “And use your tongue while you do.”

Daenerys eagerly obeyed, dipping her mouth down on Jon's cock as far as her throat would allow, and she swirled her tongue as best she could around his shaft while she did. As soon as she felt she might gag, Daenerys lifted up for a moments reprieve, then repeated the motion. A minute of this and Jon was nearly panting. 

“Fuck, Dany. That feels incredible. You're doing so good.” He moaned low and long, jerking his hips up as Daenerys went down on his length. His tip hit the back of her throat and she gagged around him. It felt amazing, but Jon breathed out a quick apology. 

Not easily fazed, Daenerys quickly recovered and resumed her ministrations. 

Another minute and Jon was at his limit. “I'm going to come, Dany,” he warned. 

A warning wasn't necessary, though. Daenerys could tell he was close to climax, and it only made her more eager to have him in her mouth. She sucked and sucked, coaxing Jon's seed to greet her hungry mouth. A series of grunts accompanied the sudden stream of cream that pumped down Daenerys's throat. Her muscles reflexively choked the substance down as it filled her up. But the final spurt of semen, she was able to keep in her mouth as she pulled off of Jon's cock, savoring it on her tongue. 

Jon immediately sat up, despite his dizziness, and wrapped his arms around Daenerys. It wasn't until she was lying beside him, nestled to his chest that she swallowed down that last bit of him. If only she could discover what it would feel like to have his seed fill her still aching cunt. 

* * * * *

Daenerys awoke just as the sun was peaking through the window, immediately inhaling the overpowering scent of sex. A linen sheet was draped up to her waist, but everything else was bare. The cool air chilled her skin. Her nipples were so hard they nearly hurt. There was something smooth tickling her neck and the space between her breasts. Her eyes fluttered open to find Jon seated in a wooden chair by the beside, scribbling a stick of charcoal against parchment. He was dressed in the same trousers and tunic he had greeted her in just a few hours earlier. 

When Jon looked back to her, his eyes widened. “Don't move,” he warned. 

“Why not?” asked Daenerys with a smirk, though she had no intention of moving a muscle if it was what Jon requested. 

He smiled, “Because I'm almost finished.”

Jon resumed his sketching, taking moments here and there to cut a quick glance at her. Daenerys watched him with a peaceful serenity. In a few minutes, Jon was announcing his completion. 

“Can I see?” asked Daenerys to which Jon turned around his parchment and revealed to her a sketch of herself from the top of her head down to her waist. Her head lulled to one side, eyes shut, a calmness upon her face, and wrapped about her neck was a thin chain, between her breasts a round pendant. She sat up, feeling the necklace graze her skin. She took the pendant into her hand and peered down at it. 

“My mother gave that to me,” Jon informed her. He set the parchment and charcoal aside and climbed into bed with Daenerys. “Or, maybe she didn't. I was too young to know. But it was hers for a time, and then it was mine.”

Daenerys ran a thumb across the patina. “A direwolf.” The sigil of House Stark, the most powerful House in all the North. They were worshiped almost like Gods throughout much of the North. Every common girl from the Neck to the Wall had a direwolf encrusted upon her single piece of jewelry, or embroidered on her favorite quilt. “Your mother was of the North as well?”

“Aye.”

Daenerys removed the necklace and gave it back to Jon. “I want to know things about you. Everything. About your mother, your life before I met you, the woman you loved before.”

Jon sighed sadly. “We don't have much time for that. You need to get back to your chamber before anyone notices you're missing.”

“I know.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him tenderly. “I'll miss you.”

Jon smiled. “I will be seeing you again in a few hours.”

“Then I will miss you for a few hours.”

Jon helped Daenerys back into her shift, slippers, and hefty cloak. 

“May I keep the drawing?” asked Daenerys sweetly. 

“I drew it for me,” replied Jon before pecking her lips. “Why would you want a drawing of yourself naked and sleeping?”

“So that I can look at it and always remember that this was how you saw me when I was yours.”

An invisible fist clench Jon's heart, weakening his knees. “I love you,” he spoke with more sincerity than anything he had ever spoken before. 

“I love you,” she replied, hugging him tight. 

Jon handed Daenerys the parchment with her sketch before she left. He also handed her a second parchment. “I want you to have this also,” he said. When she asked what it was, he replied, “A list of all the unwed Lords I have met who I think would be good husbands for you. They are not perfect, but they'll treat you the way you deserve. They won't hurt you.”

Daenerys reacted like he had punched her in the gut, but Jon simply pressed a kiss to her forehead and guided her out the door. He knew it was hard. He was dying inside just thinking about her marrying someone off that list, let alone any man but him. But this was their reality, and their time together had a death sentence that would be here before they knew it.

No matter how strongly Jon's sheets smelled of their passion, he could not shake away the image of Daenerys in the arms of another as he drifted off to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

_Renly Baratheon_

_Loras Tyrell_

_Olyvar Frey_

_Edmure Tully_

_Dickon Tarly_

_Robb Stark_

Daenerys read the names over and over again until her eyes could no longer focus. A list of men her lover would see her wedded to. How could he? In all that time they had spent together, getting to know each other's bodies and how to pleasure them, Jon had already decided which other men he was fine with her lying with. He was content to just hand her off and let her be a Baratheon or a Tyrell or a Stark so long as she wasn't a Bolton or a Lannister or a Greyjoy.

She arrived to the study at their usual appointment time and waited upon the sofa for Jon to arrive. She loved him dearly, but part of her didn't want to see his face after he'd handed her that ridiculous list.

_Renly Baratheon._ Daenerys knew of the Baratheons, and Renly was the third born son. The line of succession ran through his eldest brother Robert. Robert's child would become Lord Paramount of the Stormlands after his death. Renly would never hold that title, and titles meant everything to Daenerys's King father. Surely, Aerys would entertain Renly's offerings, but he would never be seriously considered. 

_Olyvar Frey._ Daenerys had asked Grand Maester Pycell about the young man, having never heard of him herself. The eighteenth son of Lord Walder Frey? Daenerys nearly choked she laughed so incredulously. Olyvar would fall so far outside of the King's purview that the young Lord was probably not even invited to the ball. 

_Dickon Tarly._ Heir to Horn Hill to be sure, and they were a revered House indeed, but the Tarlys were sworn to the Tyrells, the true power of the Reach. Even with Ser Loras's proclivities, Daenerys doubted the King would have Daenerys be a Tarly over a Tyrell. 

That left Ser Loras himself, Edmure Tully of Riverrun, and Robb Stark of Winterfell. 

Minutes later, Jon entered, the summery afterglow of their lovemaking still on his face. He shut the chamber door behind him and went straight to Daenerys, but when he titled her head up for a kiss, she defiantly turned her head to the side.

Jon's smile fell. "What's wrong?"

"How could you?" she asked.

With a sigh, Jon sat beside her and took her hand into his lap. "I want you to marry a good man."

"I don't want you to want me to marry any man," Daenerys snapped.

"Of course I don't want you to marry any man, but you have to, Dany. And there are going to be a lot of really bad men at that ball trying to charm you. I would sooner die than see you married off to one of them. At least, if you wed to someone from that list, I can take comfort knowing you aren't being mistreated."

"Any man who touches me who is not you is mistreating me," argued Daenerys.

"I love you," insisted Jon. "I never thought I'd fall in love with a princess."

"I never thought I'd fall in love with a painter."

Jon smiled and pecked her cheek. "Promise me you'll choose someone from that list."

"No."

"Dany."

"I won't choose any Lord. I'll run away." Her face brightened. "We can meet in Pentos."

"We can't," he stated soberly. "Promise me, Dany."

Her chin fell, eyes misting. "Alright. I promise."

As much as he wished to spend the whole day wrapped up in Daenerys, savoring their time, Jon parted from her and returned to his easel. Daenerys never made any move to correct her posture, and Jon did not insist upon it. He would focus on the background today, and allow Daenerys her comfort, what little he could grant her.

It felt like hours had gone by before Daenerys spoke again. A question that pierced Jon right to his core, with a dagger of his own making. "You think I should marry Robb Stark?"

No. No, no, no. Jon wanted to protest at the top of his lungs. But at the same time, he knew his half brother better than he knew anyone else in this world. Robb could be arrogant, he could be careless, but he would never lay an ungentle hand on a woman. He would never be cruel without good reason, and Jon could not envision a scenario in which Robb would have good reason with Daenerys.

"I think he would be a good husband," answered Jon hoarsely. "To any woman."

"How have you met so many Lords?"

A tricky question to answer, but one that did not jab at his heart at least. Carefully, he answered, "My father is a Lord."

The silver brows above Daenerys's eyes furrowed. "And he claimed you?" She had always assumed Jon had grown up the way her father's bastards had, outcasted to either be raised by his common family or in the care of an ill-equipped orphanage. 

"Aye. He brought me up, much to his Lady wife's shame. If it weren't for her loathing me so, my father may have just legitimized me. Of course, he would never make me his heir either way."

"I don't even know how something like that would work." Daenerys had heard of bastards moving into the Keeps of their Lord fathers, but only after they were grown enough to be useful. She thought of poor Jenny Waters, stuck in that filthy place that was meant to be her best chance at survival, because at least she was not on the streets. But she was a Targaryen. As much a Targaryen as Prince Aegon and Princess Rhaenys, yet they lived in castles their whole lives. Aegon would be King one day. What would poor Jenny be? Handmaiden to Lady Mooton's daughter. It wasn't fair. 

Jon smiled something next to sadness. "Don't fret about it."

"I'm not fretting. It makes perfect sense actually. You don't speak like a commoner," she said. "But, you don't really present yourself as a nobleman either."

"I suppose I'm neither common nor noble," Jon replied, tapping the tip of his paint brush to the canvas intently. "Or maybe I'm both common and noble all at once, and the two simply cancel each other out. Perhaps I'm nothing at all. Just a blank canvas throwing paint at myself to see what sticks."

Daenerys cracked a little smirk. "Am I one of these paints?"

Jon simply smiled in response, absorbing her brightened spirit for a few long moments before returning to his craft.

"If I were to live at Winterfell," Daenerys soon spoke, her voice quiet but with a dash of optimism, "perhaps we would see each other from time to time."

Jon smiled once more at her, though he could not help the sadness that misted his eyes, knowing full well that were Daenerys to marry Robb and become Lady of Winterfell, Jon would never return to his home Keep. "Perhaps we will."

Accepting his lie, Daenerys changed the subject. "Tell me about your mother."

"You really want to know?"

"I told you," she answered, "I want to know everything about you."

Everything? Her knowing everything would simply make things too difficult for both of them, but Jon could tell her this.

"She was a farmer's daughter in a little village near Moles Town, close to the Wall. Ravers from beyond the Wall slaughtered her parents and much of the villagers when she was eight. After that, she went to work at a Moles Town brothel."

"A brothel? She was a--"

"No," Jon answered. "She was there for nearly three years, cooking, cleaning, serving ale and laundering the soiled bed linens. Before she was old enough to perform _other_ duties, one of the regulars, an older innkeeper who took a liking to her, purchased her from the brothel owner to work for him at his inn in Winter Town, doing the same sort of chores she'd been performing, but without the expectation that she would one day have to put her own body on the menu."

Daenerys cringed at the thought of such torture. To have to give your body to any man willing to pay the price, and not a very high price at that.

"When she was sixteen, a young Lord spotted her from his horse in front of the inn just off the King's Road. He'd been riding to Winterfell, but as soon as he saw her, he knew he had to stop, he had to speak to her. He was betrothed to marry a young Lady, but somehow my father already knew, just with one look, that he would fall in love with this common orphan girl. He ended up staying three nights at the inn, but when it was time for him to carry on his travels, he was so guilty about leaving her that he did not return. Not for one full year. When he did finally come back to the Winter Town inn, his love was three moons deceased."

"Gods," breathed Daenerys through her heartache.

"My father soon discovered that the innkeeper, now so aged that he hadn't the stamina to lay with a woman, was caring for a babe of three moons, my mother's direwolf pendant draped over the bassinet. My mother had passed on her birthing bed believing my father would never come back for her. He refused to leave me there, to be raised like a peasant. He brought me home with him, and he raised me alongside his legitimate children, because I was his son.”

“But he never gave you his name.”

“No. I've always been a Snow.”

Daenerys stood and went to Jon, taking his face in her hands. “I would give you my name.”

The corner of Jon's mouth lifted. “You would have me be a Targaryen?”

“Yes. You would be a Targaryen, and you would stay here in King's Landing with me.”

“I will always be here with you,” replied Jon, touching his palm to the center of Daenerys's chest.

“It's not good enough.”

“It has to be,” he said. “Tell me you'll always be mine, not matter what.”

Daenerys pressed her forehead to Jon's and whispered. “I'm yours. Always. No matter what.”

“Good.” He pressed a kiss to her mouth. “That is all that matters. Now get back on that sofa so I can paint your gorgeous body.”

Smirking against his lips, Daenerys turned on her heel, blue silk fluttering behind her, and sauntered back to the sofa. “You want to paint my body, do you?” Rather than sit regally upon the sofa, Daenerys locked eyes with Jon and unfastened her gown until it cascaded from her shoulders and into a puddle of blue at her feet, revealing her nakedness to him in full. 

“Dany,” Jon breathed in meek protest. His heart thumped hard against his chest, cock stirring in his trousers at the sight of her curves in the midday light. 

“Position me,” she insisted. 

“What if someone walks in?” 

She smirked. “I'll say a gust of wind barreled through the window and swept my dress right from my body. There was nothing I could do.”

“Dany--”

“Position me.”

Jon stood, ready to pick Daenerys's dress up from the floor and dress her himself, but when he was before her, so close he could smell her arousal, he couldn't fathom covering his princess up. “Lie down on your back,” he gently commanded. 

Body tingling, not simply from the chill in the air, Daenerys complied with the painters instruction, laying lengthwise upon the red velvet. Jon stood over her, studying her physique. 

“You're right hand. Rest it above your head,” Jon instructed. 

Daenerys complied, draping her arm up and placing the back of her wrist against the cushion. 

“You're left leg. Lift your knee up and flatten your foot upon the sofa.”

Daenerys complied, her leg now bent, knee pointed at the ceiling. 

“You're right foot. Put your toes to the floor.”

Parting her thighs, Daenerys moved her right foot to the cold stones and positioned it like she wore an invisible slipper with a three inch heel. 

“And my other hand?” asked Daenerys with a glimmer in her eye. She extended her left hand to him, and Jon took it gently into his. After a soft kiss to her knuckles, he rested her palm upon her pubis, concealing her little silver hairs and her puckered lower lips. 

“Stay there,” Jon said. “Don't move a muscle.”

A wicked smile suggested Daenerys wouldn't be so amenable with that particular request, but Jon was already on his way back to his things to retrieve a scrap of parchment, a skinny brush, and a vile of black paint. Jon sat upon his stool, crossed one leg over the other, and perched his parchment in his lap. He dipped his brush into the black, gave a glace to Daenerys's erotic pose, then began to paint. 

Daenerys watched Jon, eyes glimmering with love and lust and the fear of ever being without him. She watched him watch her, studying every curve of her silhouette, dreaming of an alternate reality where Jon could study her every day like this, where he could make love to her every day without fear of consequence. 

With a little chuckle, Jon said, “You're moving, Dany.”

Indeed she was. The fingers of her left hand tickled her vagina, stroking her outer lips and playing with her pubic hair. 

“Well, I've got nothing to do over here while you're painting me all the way over there,” she whined with a bat of her eyelashes. 

“That's true,” Jon admitted with a smirk, watching between brush strokes as Daenerys dipped a finger between her folds. 

She let out a soft whimper as she pet herself in slow strokes. 

Jon lifted a finger to his lips to silently shush her. 

Daenerys slid her finger lower to circle her entrance. Remembering how wonderful it felt to have Jon's digits move inside her, Daenerys slowly pressed her middle finger through the ring of tissue. Her lips parted, but she made sure to keep her pleasured noises in her throat. She pressed deeper and deeper, her wet heat enveloping the digit. Tentatively, she moved her finger about, pumping it gently in and out, in and out. 

“Keep your eyes on me,” Jon said when her lids began to flutter. 

Focusing her gaze, Daenerys added her index finger to the mix, pushing two fingers inside of her. Her inner walls stretched and pulsed around them. The double sensation – her fingers inside her channel and her channel suckling her fingers – caused a ripple of pleasure through Daenerys's body, causing her muscles to flex and her chest to heave. Each breath was heavy and shorter than the last. 

Jon painted quickly as his cock raged in his trousers. He was desperate to pull it out and grant himself some relief. 

Desperate for orgasm, Daenerys dragged her fingers from her depth and glided them up to her swollen clitoris. She gently but feverishly rubbed herself with the pads of her fingers til her hips were twisting about and her legs trembled. 

Despite her movements, Jon wouldn't dare tell Daenerys to stop. He kept on his quick strokes upon his parchment while his eyes darted from it to the intoxicating sight of Daenerys masturbating herself. All he demanded of her was, “Keep your eyes on me, Dany.”

And she did. She held her stare on him as she frantically molested her clit, as her body rolled over the edge of ecstasy, and she came against her own hand. 

Finished with his painting, Jon dropped the parchment and brush to the table and urgently released his cock from his trousers, stroking it in his hand as he watched Daenerys come down from her orgasm. As soon as she saw Jon handling himself, she grew jealous of his hand and sat up. 

“Come here,” she demanded, and Jon was not about to refuse. 

Jon went to her, and without words, they decided what would happen next. He brought his hands behind her head, and Daenerys placed hers on his hips. She leaned forward and took his manhood into her mouth. 

“Eyes on me,” Jon repeated once more. 

Large, glimmering amethysts rose to stare lustfully into Jon's deep grays as his cock was enveloped by Daenerys's wet mouth. She bobbed and sucked and swirled her hot tongue all around his swollen organ, and expert overnight. Her secret, though, was that she loved it. She loved the taste of Jon's salty skin, the scent of his musk, and the sound of his heavy breathing. She loved to pleasure him. She loved that she could make Jon weak in the knees. She took pride in her ability to coax his cock to orgasm despite Jon being the only person she had ever explored her sexuality with. 

In just a few minutes, Jon was balling his fists in Daenerys's hair and biting back a groan as his cock expelled a mouth full of semen down Daenerys's throat. She swallowed it all up before releasing Jon's spent cock from her mouth. A dribble of excess crawled down her chin. Before she could wipe it away, Jon scooped it up with his thumb and pressed it between her lips so that she wouldn't go without one drop of his seed. 

She licked her lips before Jon kissed her, dipping his tongue into her mouth and tasting his own essence. Jon settled himself back into his trousers, then broke away from Daenerys. He retrieved her dress and helped her back into it. 

“Will you come to me tonight?” Jon asked as he combed a tangle out of her hair with his fingers. 

“Do you want me to?”

“More than anything.”

She smiled. “Good. Because I was going to come anyway.”

* * * * *

Night fell over King's Landing, and the Red Keep quieted. 

“Ser Barristan,” spoke the mousy voice of one of Daenerys's newest chamber maids, a girl of only twelve. She scurried up to the old knight as he traveled to his chamber, retiring for the evening. 

He turned to greet the girl curiously. “What is it? Why are you running about the halls so late into the night?”

“You asked me to tell you if I ever saw anything peculiar going on with the Princess.”

“Go on then, girl. What did you see?”

She revealed a piece of rolled-up parchment from behind her back, handing it to the knight with a scandalized expression. The old man unfurled it, blinking down at the sketch of the Princess in a state he had never dreamed of seeing. Her slumbering, angelic face, hair mussed and breasts exposed, nipples puckered. Ser Barristan wore a stoicism that concealed his shock. Gods. . . How could he have been so foolish? 

He bid the girl thanks, dispensed her a single gold dragon, then turned to take the parchment up to the King's chambers at once. 

“There is something else,” squeaked the girl, voice full of nerves. She liked the princess, maybe even loved her the way a girl loved an older, more beautiful sister, but she was a stonemason's daughter, and in need of coin. 

“Spit it out.”

“The Princess. . . She isn't in her bed chamber,” the girl revealed. “After I helped dress her for bed, she bid me leave for the night, but I strayed in the corridor on account of what you said – that I should look out for anything suspicious. She left her bed chamber in an over cloak half of an hour ago.”

Ser Barristan's gut gurgled with repulsion. The Queen never should have allowed that bastard into the Keep. Daenerys was smart but impressionable, and a young comely artist would be difficult to refuse. He tossed a second gold dragon to the girl, and before he could see her catch it in her small hands, he turned on his heels and marched toward the Tower of the King.

* * * * *

Lying flat upon his front, Jon groaned into his musty mattress. Daenerys's hands kneaded the muscles of his back with expertise, massaging deeply all the knots that plagued him. He was nude. They both were. Daenerys straddled his butt and with every little moan of pleasure that fell from Jon's lips, she would gyrate her hips to brush her sex against a muscled cheek. 

She moved her hands to his shoulders and rubbed little circles into his flesh with her thumbs. She leaned down to his ear and asked him if he felt better now. 

He nodded with another small groan. 

Good. She wanted him free of bodily ache before they played their bedroom games. Oh, but she did not mind the prologue to their second night-session. She wished she could massage him every night, in a feather bed preferably, during the day when the sun shone through the window. 

Jon abruptly flipped to his back, his hips turning beneath Daenerys. She fell into his arms and they kissed as lovers do, all hot breath, smacking lips, quick nibbles, and wet tongues trading the taste of the other's saliva. Jon's cock was erect and now sandwiched between his abdomen and Daenerys's cunt. She gyrated upon it, rubbing her clit along that thick vein, moaning into Jon's mouth as she did. 

“Come here,” Jon breathed, before Daenerys could plead with him to fuck her. 

She sat up, and Jon pulled her up his body til she straddled his shoulders, her knees digging into the mattress on either side of his head. She looked down at him with curious desire. He answered the question she hadn't the air in her lungs to speak by taking her hips and angling her down to his face. His mouth attached to her sex, tongue immediately lapping at her fresh arousal. 

A gasp cut through the air. Daenerys grabbed hold of the rickety headboard for balance and clenched her fists around the rods. Her head was swimming. She felt Jon's tongue press inside her and massage her inner walls. 

Jon's arms were hooked under her thighs, his hands pressed to her back to help her stay upright as she squirmed. Jon glided his tongue up to her clit, circled it and gave it a few little flicks before sucking it between his lips. 

“Jon,” Daenerys moaned, staring, eyes half-lidded, down at him. She reached her hand down to rake her fingers through his hair as he devoured her. 

Jon extended his arm up, snaking it up Daenerys's body til his middle and index finger were dipping between her parted lips. Daenerys eagerly twisted her head and accepted them into her mouth as easily as she had swallowed Jon's cock hours earlier. She took hold of his wrist and took his digits down to her throat, swirling her tongue around them and coating them with her saliva. When they were good and wet, Jon pried them from her mouth and pulled his arm back down. 

Mouth free now, Daenerys whimpered from her desperate need to come. As Jon suckled her clit like a newborn calf to a bottle, she felt his wet fingers touch her anus. 

“Jon,” she moaned his name again in anxious delight. He couldn't possibly want to. . .

Jon gently probed the tip of his index finger through the tight ring of muscle, causing Daenerys to yelp. 

“Jon!” Her cry of shock swiftly turned into a high pitched moan as Jon pressed his finger in to the second knuckle. He stayed for a few moments to let her anus adjust while he continued to stimulate her clit with his mouth. 

Daenerys hadn't the capacity to complain or to encourage. Her mind was in a complete flurry. She was a slave to Jon's manipulations, and that simple fact brought her closer and closer to ecstasy. In that moment, she would let him do anything to her. 

Feeling the tightness subside, Jon pressed his finger in to the hilt. He wouldn't need the second finger. He could already tell Daenerys was moments from orgasm. When she began to buck against his face, Jon found he could hardly breathe, but breathing was less important to him than making her come. 

“Jon!” She squealed, tossing her head back. “Please, please, please, Jon!” And then she sucked a sharp gasp down her throat, squeezed her eyes shut, and allowed the electrical shocks to ravage her body until she was a wriggling, panting mess. 

“Joooooon,” she whimpered as her orgasm subsided, drawing out the name in a plea for her love to bid her reprieve. 

Jon slowed his mouth, retracted his tongue, and instead pressed a series of closed-lip kisses to her clit, each one eliciting a little jerk of her hips and a quiet whimper. He dragged his finger from her hole carefully, then took her by the hips and lifted her off of him. 

Daenerys rolled onto her back and pulled Jon on top of her.

“How was that?” he whispered beside her ear before sucking the lobe between his teeth. 

She let out another whimper, her body still quacking. In a shuddered breath, she replied, “Incredible.” 

* * * * *

When Ser Barristan wrapped on the thick wooden slab that was the King's bed chambers, it was the Queen who pulled the door ajar. She was dressed in her night dress with a wool shall wrapped about her shoulders for modesty. She looked perplexed by the after hours visit.

"What's going on?" she asked in a fright, expecting the worst. Her first thought went to her children and grandchildren.

"Where is the King?" questioned Ser Barristan.

Rhaella rolled her eyes. "In the toilets. He'll be some time, so why not just tell me what is the meaning of your intrusion."

He gave a small bow. "I apologize, your Grace, but I feel this is an urgent matter. There is a very big problem with Daenerys."

"Dany?" Rhaella clutched her chest. "What's the matter with her? What's happened? Is she alright?"

"The Princess's chamber maid found this in her room." Ser Barristan handed the roll of parchment to the Queen.

Rhaella tore open the parchment, fearing it a suicide note or something equally catastrophic, but her eyes beheld not words, but an image. The image of her sweet virginal daughter from the waist up, breasts on full display. And in between her breasts rested a circular pendant. Rhaella could just faintly make out the lines of a direwolf.

"This was in her room?"

"Yes, your Grace. I fear it means--"

"I know what it means," she interrupted, rolling the parchment back up and handing it back to the knight. "Have the maid put it back exactly where she found it before she wakes Daenerys for breakfast.

"Your Grace, that isn't all. The Princess is not in her bed chamber. She's missing. Possibly she has run off with him."

Rhaella's heart sank to her feat. Melancholy overwhelmed her features, but Ser Barristan had expected something more akin to anger.

"No. Daenerys is young and hormonal, but she isn't so foolish as to leave behind this drawing for anyone to find had she planned to run away. No, she is with him now."

"I must inform the King."

"No," Rhaella said. "He cannot know. He'll only throw the boy in the dungeons."

"The bastard is a predator who is defiling the Princess as we speak," argued Ser Barristan.

Rhaella sent a glare up at the knight to remind him of his place. "A bastard he may be, but he is still Ned Stark's son. All the banner-men in the North will be storming our gates if Aerys does what I know he will do if he finds out about this."

"What would you have me do, your Grace?"

"Just as I've said," answered Rhaella. "Put the drawing back before Daenerys knows it's been found."

"Let me go get the Princess at least. Let me get her away from him."

"No. That will only humiliate her and drive her further into his arms. The portrait is almost finished. Ensure its completed by end of day tomorrow, and after Daenerys has gone, I want you to immediately escort Jon Snow back to the North where he came from. Give him a pouch of gold to not breathe a word of his tryst with the Princess. Daenerys with be betrothed after the ball, and all of this mess will be behind us."

* * * * *

The two lovers laid together under candlelight glow, only a thin sheet covering their lower halves. Daenerys on her back, Jon on his side, their legs intertwined, eyes connected. Jon's fingers danced across her breast, lightly brushing her nipple every so often, while Daenerys had her hand under the sheet. In a loose grip, she languidly stroked Jon's cock ever so slowly – enough to keep him engorged, but not enough to edge him toward orgasm.

"So, this is what husbands and wives are doing every night?" asked Daenerys with a content smile.

Jon chuckled. "I'm fairly certain most husbands and wives aren't doing this every night."

"What do you think they're doing?"

"Well, at this hour, the husband is probably wandering into their bed chamber, tipsy from too much wine, belly extended from too much meat at supper. The wife has been in bed for hours, and just as she is drifting off to sleep, the husband crawls onto her, flips her onto her chest, pushes his little cock into her dry cunt, gives a few hard thrusts, then collapses on top of her, falling immediately asleep. If they're lucky, she'll be pregnant with a boy come next moon."

Daenerys frowned. She knew Jon was joking, but also knew there was probably much truth in the jest. In fact, the one time her mother had talked to her about sex dynamics, she more or less hinted at that exact scenario.

"That won't be your life, though, Dany," Jon insisted, seeing the saddened look on her face.

It would be, and she knew it. But she didn't want to think of that now. "We wouldn't be like that, would we?"

Jon smiled. "No. We'd be much different."

"Tell me."

He touched his nose to her cheek, thumbed her erect nipple, and answered, “We'd be in Pentos. No castles, no guards, no Kings and Queens, no subjects. We'd live in a house--”

“Yellow, with a red door,” she murmured.

“--by the sea. We would taste the salt from the beach on our tongues when we step outside. We'd live on a large grove of lemon trees, and each morning we would pick lemons for lemonade.”

“Would we have children?”

“Do you want children?”

Daenerys's head turned, the nips of their noses grazing. “Yes.”

“Good.” He smiled. “We'd have three. A boy and two girls. They all have your eyes. They would help us pick the lemons, and then we'd all go to the beach for play. I would lie with you on the warm sand. We'd never be cold. Always warm. At night, we would all eat supper together and talk about how much fun we had during the day. We'd wash the children and tuck them into their beds. Then we would retire to our own. A large bed, but not so large that we stray too far from one another in the night. It's thick and soft, filled with the gentlest of goose feathers.”

“Would you make love to me?” Her thumb swiped across the tip of Jon's cock, smoothing his per-ejaculate around the swollen head. 

Jon breathed in a slow sigh, pressed a tender kiss to Daenerys's lips, and answered, “Every night.” He rolled her erect nipple between his fingers. “Some nights, I would ravage you. Licking you, sucking you, fucking you until you're a writhing mess of trembling limbs, crying out my name.”

Daenerys shivered, arching her back to his touch and firming her grasp around his cock. 

“But other nights, I would pull you flush and love you gently. Only feathered touches and chaste kisses. I'd dance the tip of my tongue over your flesh ever so lightly. Your ear, your throat, your nipples, your navel, your sex. I would tease your most sensitive areas until you're begging me to enter you through little breaths.”

Daenerys licked her lips, feeling fresh moisture between her legs. 

“But I wouldn't. No matter how much you would plead with me to thrust my cock inside you, I wouldn't do it. Not until you're so delirious with lust that your lips cannot form a single word.”

“Jon,” she breathed, giving his cock a tug. 

“When I decide your ready, and only when I decide, I'll position myself between your thighs--”

“Jon,” she breathed again, turning to her side and lifting a leg atop Jon's hip. 

“--and touch the tip of my cock to your sex. Just the tip. And I would caress your inner folds. I would stroke your hard little bundle of nerves, and just before you're about to come--”

“Jon,” she whimpered, breathing quickly against Jon's mouth as she used Jon's cock to stimulate her cunt, coating the head with her wetness. 

Jon wrapped his arms around her, so enraptured by her beauty and scent, and so lost in his own fantasies, that he made no move to stop what was happening beneath the sheet. “--I would press myself to your opening, and I would keep pressing until your walls open up for me, letting me fill you with my cock.”

Daenerys's body trembled. Her fingers jittered as they handled the cock in question. Her cunt pulsed as it hungrily sucked the head into her depths, stretching her channel more than it ever had before. 

Jon shuddered a breath, mind flooding with desperation. “I would nestle so deeply inside you, you would feel me in your womb--”

Inch by inch, Daenerys pulled Jon in until her body and mind were consumed with pleasure and pain – comfort and discomfort all at once. 

Jon turned Daenerys onto her back, settling on top of her and pushing his manhood the final few inches until he was filling her completely. Daenerys's mouth gaped and her chest heaved as her body acclimated to this new intrusion. Breathlessly, she mouthed the word, “Please,” through half lidded eyes. 

“--and you would come for me without ever having to touch your clit.” He dragged his cock half way out of her channel only to drive it quickly drive it back inside.

Daenerys released a squeal, digging her nails into Jon's back. She was quaking already, her toes flexing and her thigh muscles tensing. 

Before he lost his ability to speak, Jon leaned in to her ear and murmured one final phrase that he knew would push her over the edge. “Because you're my perfect Princess.”

Daenerys arched her back and cried out with reckless abandon as wave after wave of intense pleasure attacked her body. As soon as her orgasm began, Jon began to move his hips in rapid succession, pumping is cock in and out of her in as steady a rhythm as he could manage with his own climax bubbling up from his scrotum. 

“Yes!” screamed Daenerys, head thrown back against the mattress. Jon attached his mouth to her neck and lapped at his skin. “Yes, yes, yes! Please!” she continued, rocking her hips up to meet Jon's every thrust. 

Jon grunted against her shoulder. He was possessed. No amount of discarded logic could stop him now. He fucked them both into sweet oblivion until semen rippled through his cock to coat Daenerys's channel. With one final thrust, Jon emptied himself inside of her. 

Daenerys yelped, hands squeezing Jon's butt cheeks to hold him steady. She couldn't take any more pleasure. Her body shook beneath him like she was stranded in an ice blizzard in the far North, but her skin was red and hot to the touch. 

As soon as Jon regained his bearings enough to process what he'd just done, he took Daenerys's face in his hands. “Dany, darling?” he spoke with concern at her ravaged state. 

Her glimmering amethysts locked with his grays. “Don't let me marry a Lord,” she said, voice trembling. “Take me away. Take me to Pentos. We can leave tonight. Right now.”

“Dany.”

“Please, Jon?” she begged. “I'm meant to be with you, and you're meant to be with me.”

Jon's lips parted but he hadn't any words to speak. He wanted so desperately to believe her, but the fact of the matter was that they weren't meant to be together. She was meant to marry a Lord, an heir to a lavish Keep and a substantial army. Had Jon been meant for her, he would have been born a Lord; he would have been his father's heir, not Robb. 

And yet, the only phrase strong enough to push through Jon's silence was, “Tomorrow night.”

Daenerys's heart leaped in her chest. “Really? You mean it?”

Did he? “Yes,” he insisted despite himself. “As soon as you can, come straight here with only a small pack with essentials. I'll find us a way out.”

Daenerys's eyes misted, her bottom lips quivering. 

“Don't cry,” Jon softly urged, kissing her pouted lip. 

“I'm excited,” she whispered, a tear rolling down the side of her face. “I'm really, really excited.”

Jon wrapped Daenerys up in his arms and held on tight, over and over breathing “I love you” against her hot flesh.


	7. Chapter 7

The following morning, Daenerys was all teeth, unable to control her giddy smile as she nibbled on her breakfast. 

“Daenerys,” her mother spoke, gentle and refined. “I need you to come straight to the Tower of the Queen after your appointment today. We need to do the final fitting for your gown.”

The thought of a brand new gown used to excite her more than life itself, but Daenerys could not care less about such superfluous things now, not when she was but a breath away from getting everything she never knew she wanted. “Alright, mother.”

Rhaella stroked her daughter's hair, brushing it from her porcelain face and smoothing the thick waves down her back. It seemed just one moon ago, Daenerys was a little girl tugging at her skirts and sneaking sweets from the kitchens. But she wasn't a little girl anymore. She'd grown into a beautiful young woman right before Rhaella's eyes, and it pained her heart as much as it soothed it to know that Daenerys had explored her womanhood already, even before her betrothal. Rhaella had been expected to marry her elder brother from the moment she was born, and in an act of defiance before the wedding, she had fallen for a dashing squire her own age. Though she never saw the boy once she was married, Rhaella still thought of him from time to time, and what could have been had circumstances been different. 

But that was why Rhaella insisted on this ball. She wanted Daenerys to have a choice. She wanted her daughter to find a good man who would make her happy, maybe even love her. But for her to fall for a bastard with no name, title or land. . . that was a bridge too far. Aerys would have the boy executed, and Rhaella knew Daenerys would never recover from that. 

“The men will all love you,” she told Daenerys. “You'll have your pick of the lot.”

“Alright.”

“I hope you know that your happiness and well-being is the most important thing in this world to me.”

Daenerys smiled warmly at her mother. She stood and wrapped Rhaella up in a firm embrace. “I know that, mother. I love you.”

Her daughter's sweetness was not unusual, but surprising on this morning. Rhaella expected Daenerys to fight against the ball and the prospect of getting married at all now that her heart was intertwined with Jon Snow's. Perhaps Daenerys's affections for the boy did not run so deep, though. Perhaps her daughter simply needed someone to help her learn of herself and to satiate her needs. Good, Rhaella decided. Then Daenerys will not be too devastated once Jon has gone.

* * * * *

Daenerys sat in formation upon the velvet sofa in the study as Jon made his final brush strokes upon the canvas. She admired the intent expression upon his face as he neared completion of her portrait, something for her Queen mother to remember her by once she and Jon were safe on the opposite side of the narrow sea. 

Soon, Jon leaned back from the canvas, dropped his brush into a goblet of water, and examined all that he had done over the coarse of his stay in King's Landing. Before he began this artwork, Jon was a different person – a mere boy traipsing all over the North sketching farm girls, tavern wenches, and whores, having only completed one commissioned portrait of the little Lady Karstark as a name day gift to her mother. He had only known the touch of one woman, a Wildling who found her way beyond the wall, and though they spent one exhilarating afternoon together in the baths of a hollow mountain, a Wildling and the bastard of Ned Stark were destined to fall apart. So they fell apart. Hard.

Daenerys, though. . . Jon was determined to keep Daenerys. She was his, and she always would be, princess or not. 

“Come see,” he said, standing and making room. 

Daenerys moved to the easel, standing just before the canvas and studied her painted self. “I love it.” She turned and threw her arms around Jon's neck, kissing him for the first time since they made love in the night's early hours. “I know Mother and Father will love it, too.”

Jon smiled, circling her waist with his arms and bringing her close. Just above a whisper, he asked, “Are we still leaving together tonight?”

“Of course.” Daenerys's face fell slightly. “You still want to?”

“Yes,” Jon insisted. “More than anything.” 

She grinned, then returned her mouth to his, kissing him passionately. His tongue slid between her parted lips. His bulge immediately thickened, pressing into her abdomen. 

Just then, the study door opened with a loud creak, and they both leaped back from one another, faces flushed. 

“Ser Barristan,” Daenerys said as the old knight sauntered into the study, trying to even her breathing. “Come see the finished product.”

The man wore a stolid stare. “It's time for you to see your mother, Princess,” he said. 

Daenerys swallowed down her nerves, turning to Jon to give him the briefest of smiles. 'Tonight,' she said with her eyes. 

Once Daenerys had left, Jon began packing his things. He noticed immediately that the knight remained standing in his same spot. He noticed shortly thereafter that the knight had his hand rested upon the pummel of his sword. Jon tried to pay the power-play no mind, but as he wandered down the empty corridors of the East Tower, Jon realized Ser Barristan was following him. 

He turned, glaring at the knight. “Can I help you?”

Ser Barristan kept his stride until he was a mere foot from Jon, staring down at the young man from a towering height. “Walk,” he gruffly commanded. 

Jon squinted up at Ser Barristan, then titled his gaze to see the man's hand had never left his sword's pummel. “What is going on?” he asked, blood temperature rising. 

“I am charged with escorting you back North, bastard. The portrait is finished. It is time now for you to return home.” 

An invisible fist squeezed Jon's heart. “We leave today?”

“Right now.”

“I don't understand. Why do I need an escort? Who gave you this order?”

“The Queen,” replied Ser Barristan, unsheathing his sword enough to show Jon the shimmer of the steel. 

“What is happening? I can't just-- Daenerys. I should say goodbye to her,” Jon stammered. 

“You will never speak to the Princess again. Don't make a scene, or the servants will hear, and then I'll have no choice but to throw you in a dark cell to await the King's justice. And his is never so merciful.”

The invisible fist clenched around Jon's heart dropped his heart to his stomach. He felt sick, so sick he could collapse. “I need to see her,” Jon demanded. 

“I believe you saw enough of the Princess last night,” seethed Ser Barristan. “And it is by the grace of her Queen mother than I did not burst into your chamber and slit your throat on the spot.”

Jon's mind turned to vapor, misting her eyes. “I love her,” he insisted. 

“I don't care. I could take you to the King and you can tell him how much you've loved his only daughter while you've been living under his roof. I'm sure he will care quite a deal. Or, you can turn around and _walk._

Jon's entire life flashed before his eyes. Not the life he has lived, but the life he was meant to live with Daenerys. Pentos. The red door. The lemons and the sandy beach. Their tender love and a feather bed keeping them warm each night. Their children. 

Body numb, Jon slowly turned, and as if being led to the executioner's block, he left the tower, the Keep, and his Princess's life indefinitely.

* * * * *

The sun went down over King's Landing, and ten hours later, the sun returned to the sky, bathing the city in warmth. Rhaella awaited her daughter's company on the veranda, but the toast and tea went cold with no sign of her daughter. 

“Where is the Princess?” she asked the first of Daenerys's chamber maids she spotted on her way through the corridors. 

“Still in bed, your Grace,” replied the girl in a mousy, anxious voice. “I think she might be ill.”

Rhaella hurried the rest of the way to Daenerys's bed chamber. The room was dark, the shutters and drapes still drawn. There was a lump in the center of the bed: Daenerys wound tightly in her blankets, just the top of her silver-haired head poking out. Rhaella rounded the bed and drew open the drapes to let some light into the room. 

“I said to keep them closed!” sounded Daenerys's hoarse voice. 

“Dany,” Rhaella spoke, expecting Daenerys to smarten up once she realized she was speaking to her mother and not a servant girl. 

But Daenerys simply rolled away from Rhaella's voice, turning to face the opposite wall. 

“What is the matter with you, Daenerys?” asked Rhaella, rounding the bed once more and climbing upon the mattress beside Daenerys. She tugged on the blankets to uncover Daenerys's face to see her skin was flushed and stained with tears, her lilac eyes rimmed with redness and damp eyelashes. “Sweetheart, what's the matter?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” croaked Daenerys as she burst into a fit of tears. She turned to dig her face into her pillow. 

Rhaella reached a hand out to run her fingers through Daenerys's hair. Gods. . . she had fallen in love with the boy. “Oh, Dany,” she sighed in anguish over her daughter's state. “Everything will be alright.” 

“I just don't feel well,” Daenerys cried. “I have an ache. I'm sick.”

“Shall I fetch the Grand Maester?”

“No.”

No. . . What Daenerys was sick with, no Maester could remedy. No one could. Daenerys would have to find a cure all on her own, and that was what hurt Rhaella the most – her inability to absorb this pain and carry it herself so that Daenerys no longer had to suffer. Please. . . Rhaella thought, please let the bastard not have penetrated her soon-to-be-betrothed daughter. At the very least, allow Daenerys's womanhood to be intact. But the way Daenerys choked on her sobs told Rhaella that her daughter had already given every piece of herself to Jon Snow. 

* * * * *

Robb Stark was still a weeks ride outside of King's Landing. He would arrive just in time for the ball. Oh, this silly affair. . . He wanted nothing to do with it. He had spent the last two years traveling the world by ship, visiting the sand dunes of Dorne, the rolling fields of the Reach, and all the way to Essos – the free cities, Yunkai, Astapor, the great grass sea where Dothraki hordes reign free. He had seen the ruins of Old Valyria, and met the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen in Volantis. 

Talisa. . . Robb dreamed of her every night, her long dark hair and big black eyes, her olive skin and taunt body, her silken voice and flowery scent. All he wanted was to sail back to Volantis and dedicate his life to her in a ceremony of the Seven. But, despite her being noble born in Volantis, she was a foreigner to Westeros, and the heir to Winterfell could never marry a foreign-born girl, no matter how sophisticated, brilliant, and kind she was. His only hope of ever even seeing his Talisa again was if he managed to avoid a betrothal to the Princess. 

Robb had not seen Daenerys Targaryen in more than a decade. All he remembered was a shy little girl who liked sweets and staring off into the air, watching nothing in particular. According to his Lady mother, Daenerys had grown into quite a beauty, but the Princess could sing all the siren songs she wanted – they would never draw his heart away from Talisa. 

“You're in your head again,” Theon said, Robb's closest mate besides his bastard brother. They had met along the King's Road, both heading to the Red Keep for the same purpose: to meet the Princess and vie for her affections in a ball room full of other pompous Lords. “Thinking about all the things you're going to do to the Princess once she's yours?”

Robb rolled his eyes at his friend's remark. “It won't be me.”

“Spare me. You're Robb Stark, heir to Winterfell. You'll be the next Warden of the North. You're the most powerful unwed Lord in the Seven Kingdoms.”

“What about Loras Tyrell?”

“That poof? He's the richest unwed Lord in the Seven Kingdoms, but what is the Princess going to want with a cocksucker?”

“You should watch your mouth. We aren't far from the Reach.”

“I'm serious.”

Robb sighed, slamming down the rest of his ale and waving a finger at the tavern wench to bring him a refill. “Well, let's see. She marries an honorable, brave man who is good with a sword, has unimaginable means to take care of her, a lavish Keep in arguably the most beautiful Kingdom in the country, and she never has to worry about him raping her to sleep each night.” 

Theon leaned forward, smirking. “Some girls like that.”

“No girl likes that, and if you keep talking this way, I'll make sure the Princess never gives you the time of day.”

Theon squinted his gaze, craning his head to look at something behind Robb's head. 

“What is it?” asked Robb.

“Is that your brother?”

Robb turned and scanned the tavern until he saw someone familiar slouched in a booth along the opposite wall. It sure did look like Jon. . . Robb stood, telling Theon he would be right back. He moved to the booth, and the closer he came the more sure he was that the young man was his half-brother. 

“Jon!” Robb greeted him jovially. 

Jon's head lifted from where it was downcast at the table. Upon seeing his Lord brother for the first time since he left on his travels, Jon was stunned. “Robb.” He stood and the two young men embraced fondly. Oh how he missed his brother. 

“What's the matter with you?” Robb asked. “You look positively dreadful.”

The clearing of Ser Barristan's throat interrupted the reunion. Both heads turned to the old man who had been stuck by Jon's side like glue since leaving King's Landing. 

Robb pointed his finger at the man in golden Targaryen armor. “You're Ser Barristan Selmy.”

“Aye,” the man confirmed stolidly. 

“Gods. . . You're a legend.” Robb now had another reason to be shocked. He slid into the booth and eagerly posed question after question to the man. 

Jon was back to being a shell of himself in a matter of moments. All he could think as he watched his brother chat excitedly with his escort was that in just a week's time, Robb would most likely be engaged to Daenerys. She probably hated Jon now, thinking he abandoned her, that he never really wanted to run away with her, that he never truly loved her. She will be so vulnerable during the ball, in pain and susceptible to a dashing man with a kind smile who was ready and willing to take her under his cloak. How soon will it be before she falls in love with another? How long before she forgets all about Jon?

But as much as it pained Jon, he knew Robb was one of Daenerys's few chances at living a happy life after marriage. He couldn't tell Robb about all he'd done with Daenerys – that he had stolen her purity and her womanhood already. No one could ever know. If word got out, she would be viewed as a tainted commodity. The good Lords wouldn't want her. She'd be married off to the likes of Theon Greyjoy, recently legitimized Ramsay Bolton, or one of the many old and distasteful Frey men who still troubled in finding wives. 

Jon simply closed his eyes and recalled Daenerys, seeing her in his mind as vivid as if she were standing just before him. 'I'm sorry,' he wanted to tell her. 'We were doomed from the start.'

Before Robb could pick Ser Barristan's brain about his swordsmanship, the knight was insisting he and Jon take their leave. Trying to put on a contented face for the benefit of his brother, Jon bid him farewell with another hug. “See you in the North, brother,” he said. 

Yes. . . the North. Robb's home he cherished so deeply. And yet, his heart lied in the East. 

* * * * *

As they traveled North along the King's Road at a snail's pace, Jon's optimism grew. If Daenerys married Robb, she would move to Winterfell and become Lady of the Keep once his Lord father passed. Jon did not have to exile himself from her. No one in the North knew of their love. He could come to her after the wedding, once things had died down and she was getting acquainted to the grounds. On the outside, Jon would merely be a brother coming home to visit his family, but he would really be there to visit Daenerys. Would she still want to see him? Would her feelings for him remain? 

Yes. Jon willed himself to believe it possible that she would still love him – that she would still be his. 

They could sneak off into the woods, the dense forest barricading them from the outside world. He would throw down a pelt of fur and lie her down upon it, then strip her of every stitch of clothing until her fair skin shimmered in the cool Northern air. Jon would crawl over top her and warm her with his body heat, so hot for her. They would make love to the sound of rustling leaves, and for an hour at least, they could pretend she wasn't married to Robb at all. 

But Jon's optimism was short lived. By the time they reached the Twins, Jon was realizing that he couldn't do that to his brother. He wouldn't, no matter how much he loved Daenerys, no matter the fact that he loved her first. He could not lie with another man's wife. If Daenerys were to come North, Jon would go South, maybe even East, to find that yellow house by the sea and settle there by himself. 

Gods. . . But the thought of going to Pentos without Daenerys made Jon feel cruel. 

“I'm tellin' ye, ain't no one gonna come lookin' for me in Braavos,” a voice behind Jon spoke in a peasant's tongue. Jon was sat in a pub, polishing off a pitcher of ale to sooth his heartache while Ser Barristan devoured a lamb chop. Two men sat at the table behind Jon. Not men, though. More like boys, their voices cracking from late puberty. 

“I dun even know how ye made it this far, runnin' from the Night's Watch,” the second boy said.

“Fuck they oaths. I ain't freezin' my balls off up there the resta my life just 'cause of some fuckin' oaths.”

Jon looked to Ser Barristan, who also seemed to hear the boys speak of treason, for it was a grave offense to desert the Night's Watch, and punishable by death. 

“I'm going outside for a piss,” Ser Barristan grumbled. “I'll take care of the boy when I get back. We're heading North anyhow. May as well bring along another traitor.” 

Traitor? That was what Jon was to the great knight? Jon watched the man leave the tavern with a glare, but something else the boys spoke of brought his attention back behind him. 

“There's a trade ship headin' for Braavos from King's Landing in five days, and the captain'll smuggle anyone aboard if they pinch 'im a gold dragon or two,” said the first boy, the deserter. 

“And where's you gonna get a gold dragon or two?”

“Oh, I'm sure I can find someone who's got some gold on my way to the city.”

“Five days even? How's you gonna make it all the way to King's Landing in five days?”

“Trick is to keep movin',” answered the deserter. 

And to stay off the King's Road, Jon thought to himself. He would have to stay off the King's Road, and away from taverns and inns and anywhere else a knight may happen upon. Five days? He'd have to ride fast and nonstop. When one horse tires, he'd have to find another. No time to waste waiting for the same one to recuperate each night. Maybe three hours of sleep per night, but every other hour would need to be spent on horseback. Gods his balls will ache. . . 

When Ser Barristan returned to the tavern, his eyes went straight for the pubescent boy, happy to snatch him up and bring him back to the Night's Watch. No use bloodying his sword when the Wall needed manpower. Perhaps he'll bring his friend along, too. Their conversation alone could be cause enough for a sentence of harboring a traitor. 

But then his eyes carried to the table he had left only a few minutes earlier, where the bastard had been sitting, but is no longer. The knight twisted this way and that, scanning the tavern for the young man, but saw him no where. He ran outside and surveyed the perimeter of the establishment and saw nothing. 

“Seven Hells,” he grumbled under his breath. The damned bastard was gone.

* * * * *

The day of the grand suitors' ball, Daenerys was still as miserable as she had been a couple weeks before. But now, at least she was able to pull herself out of bed, if only for her mother's sake. Rhaella had told Aerys Daenerys had come down with a woman's sickness, and her King husband asked no more questions on the matter. But now was when Daenerys would need to pull herself together and at least pretend to not be dying inside. 

Rhaella watched as Daenerys was shoved into her new gown by her chamber maids. One fixed her hair in intricate braiding while the other yanked on the ties of her corset. 

“Not so tight,” Rhaella instructed. Daenerys had hardly eaten in two weeks and she feared it would make the gown look big. 

Daenerys stood before her floor length mirror, staring numbly at her reflection while her chamber maids manipulated her like a rag doll at her Queen mother's instruction. Powder would have to be dabbed on her cheeks and under the eyes to conceal the redness of her skin, chafed from so much drying of tears. Her eyes watered even then, but Rhaella was quick to run up and pressed a handkerchief to her face. 

“You need to stop this, Daenerys,” Rhaella insisted, her patience wearing thin. “You mustn't stain the gown before the ball.”

“I don't care about the gown,” Daenerys muttered. “I don't care about the ball. I don't want to get married to any of those Lords.”

“It doesn't matter if you care or not. It doesn't matter if you want to do it or not. You will do it, because it is your duty as the daughter of the King. Do you think I wanted to marry my brother when I was girl?I did as my father bid me, and now you must do as your father bids you. When you have children, they will do as their father bids them. This evening, you will have a hand in deciding the man who will bid your children, Daenerys. I would think you would want to be present for that.” 

“Mother--” she whimpered. 

“Put a smile on your face, Daenerys, or the only Lord who will want to marry you is one who enjoys seeing you in pain.” 

Daenerys's mouth gaped at her mother's shortness and watched with leaking eyes as Rhaella left the chamber. 

* * * * *

The ball commenced at sundown, and the feast was served. Daenerys sat at a long table at the head of the room, perpendicular to all other tables that were packed with feathered Lords and their families in elegant dress. This was the only times Daenerys ever sat between her parents at a feast. Typically the order would go, Rhaenys, Aegon, Elia, Rhaegar, King Aerys, Queen Rhaella, Viserys, then Daenerys at the far right end. Tonight, however, Daenerys sat at her father's side, a sign that she was special on this day, and that the King was granting it so. Though still so unhappy, Daenerys could at least take pride in that. 

After the feast, the workers moved the tables out of the great hall and a quartet played jaunty music for all to enjoy. Immediately, Daenerys was bombarded with flattery and offers to dance. She tried to remember the list Jon had given her. She already spotted Loras Tyrell, one of the only men not clambering to get at her. She wasn't quite sure what the others looked like, until she saw Robb Stark. Suddenly the memories of them playing together as children came flooding back. She remembered him perfectly, but he looked so much more dashing now, so much more like a man. 

“Care to dance, Princess?” Lord Stark asked with a kind smile. 

Daenerys accepted, allowing Robb to guide her onto the floor. 

“My mother is very keen on a marriage between us,” Robb told her as the waltzed. 

“You're not?” asked Daenerys with one eyebrow raised. 

“Well, we hardly know each other. Last time I saw you, you were young enough to still be eating worms.”

Daenerys gasped, then chuckled. “I have never eaten worms in my life.”

“Oh, that must have been one of my sisters then.”

The young Lord's smile was infectious, but Robb Stark seemed like the sort of man who smiled constantly, and Daenerys decided she would get tired of it after some time. She much preferred the way Jon would only smile when he really, truly meant it. 

“Forgive me for saying this, Princess,” Robb said, “but you don't look very well.”

Daenerys looked around them, suddenly worried her mother may be looking this way and see the same thing Robb was. “I was sick the past couple of weeks. Perhaps I'm not as recovered as I thought I was.”

“Sorry to hear that. What was the matter?”

“Oh. . . Just some food that settled wrong probably.”

Robb leaned in close and spoke low, “Thought maybe you didn't want to be here.”

Daenerys's cheeks pinked at having been so easily found out. “I suppose I feel a little bit. . . on display.”

“A Princess who doesn't want to be on display? That's refreshing.”

She chuckled and allowed Robb to twirl her. 

“Can I speak to you with earnest, Princess?” Robb asked. 

“Of course. And you can call me Daenerys.”

“Well, Daenerys, the truth is, I don't think we'd make a very good match.”

The Princess's brows furrowed, taking slight offense. “You don't?”

“It isn't about your beauty, because you are absolutely stunning, and it isn't about your personality, because you strike me as a lovely person. The thing is, though – and I'm hoping you'll understand – my heart already belongs to another.”

Her jaw dropped momentarily at the Lord's bluntness. Was this the difference between men and women, or was it simply that she was royalty and he a mere Lord, that he felt so empowered to say such a thing while Daenerys feared a lashing or worse if she let it slip she had loved another. . . That she _loves_ another.

“I'm sorry, Princess,” Robb hastily said. “I hope you aren't cross. I just. . . I suppose I was hoping you would tell the King you hadn't any interest in me.”

Yes. . . This was indeed the difference between a Princess and a Lord. Daenerys alone had the ability to let this young man off the hook of an arranged marriage just by indicating disinterest, but no matter how many of these men Daenerys disliked, she will have to marry one of them. No one was going to let her off the hook. 

“I can do that,” she finally answered. It wasn't as if she actually was interested in Robb, so she would simply be telling the truth. 

“I could give you some advice if you'd like. Tell you which men are worth a dance.”

“Alright.”

Robb surveyed the room, then pointed toward a man who looked nearly twice Daenerys's age. “That's Lord Edmure Tully. He's my uncle. A little foolhardy to be sure, but he's great company. Funny and charming, and he would treat you well at Riverrun.” Robb looked to his other side, then pointed toward a lean young man with short black hair and a little beard. He was certainly attractive, but the distracted look in his eye told Daenerys he wanted to be here just as little as she did. “That's Renly Baratheon. I haven't spent much time with him personally, but my brother has always been really fond of him. They're quite close, I believe. I warn you, though, you may not exactly be his type--”

“You have two brothers, right? Brandon and Rickon? I thought they were small boys still.”

“I was actually speaking of my half-brother.”

“Oh, I didn't know you had a half-brother.”

“You didn't?” Robb seemed surprised. “I assumed you two would have gotten to know each other a little bit.”

“I'm sorry?”

“When he did your portrait,” Robb replied, pointing to the large portrait hung upon the wall, now framed in gold. “It must have taken a while to complete, but Jon has always been very focused.”

“Jon. . .” Daenerys uttered his name like it had been years since the last time she spoke it. “Jon Snow is your brother?”

“Aye. He's my father's bastard.”

Daenerys's heart just about stopped. It all made so much sense, yet she hadn't ever put the pieces together. How Jon's father had met his mother at an inn while on his way to Winterfell. The direwolf pendant gifted to Jon. Jon's knowledge of so many Lords. 

“Also, even though he's my mate,” Robb said, “I'd recommend staying away from Theon Greyjoy.”

Daenerys was no longer paying attention to Robb's words. She wanted to leave this instant, to go back to her chambers and drown herself in her bed blankets. 

* * * * *

Jon arrived in King's Landing, clothes filthy with dirt and sweat, horse near collapsing from exhaustion, and with no time to spare. He went straight to the Red Keep, using his knowledge of the passageways to find the great hall in an inconspicuous manner. He went up to the balcony overlooking the hall, high up enough that everyone looked like miniatures swirling about jovially, but close enough that he could still spot his Princess in the center of the dance floor. Her hair was all done up in braids and her ruby dress fluttered around her as she twirled in the arms of another man.

The sight of another man touching her caused an ache deep in Jon's gut, and when he saw that the man was Robb, it only made the pain sting worse. But this was what he told her to do. He wrote Robb's name down on that scrap of parchment knowing the consequences. It wasn't too late, was it? The ball had only just begun. Surely Daenerys's heart was not so easily transferred.

Jon disappeared into a shadowed corridor, and as soon as he spotted a young servant girl, he stopped her and presented her with a gold dragon. "Deliver a message for me," he said, placing the coin in an eager palm.

Down on the dance floor, Daenerys couldn't help the next question that left her lips. "Do you think your brother is a good man?"

Robb cocked an eyebrow, but his smile remained. "Of course. I'd trust him with my life. Sometimes I think Jon is more like my Lord father than any of his legitimate children. Why do you ask? He wasn't untoward with you, was he?"

"Perhaps a bit."

"Man are different in the North. More direct and unfettered. If he upset you in anyway, I'll ring him like a bell."

Daenerys smiled sadly. Oh if he only knew.

"Princess?" a little mousy voice spoke from beside them, that of a young kitchen girl a head shorter than everyone else in the hall. "I'm supposed to tell you a message."

"Alright then, what's the message?" replied Daenerys curiously.

"I'm supposed to tell you that you have an appointment in the study."

"The study? Which study?"

The girl shrugged and scurried away.

"I wonder what that was about," said Robb.

"I don't know." But as soon as she repeated the girls message in her head, she felt flush. Could this be what she thought it was? "I have to speak to my father."

"Of course." Robb gave a small bow before Daenerys flitted off, but not too find her father, who was delving headlong into a second pitcher of wine.

She lifted her skirt and ran on heeled slippers, climbing stairs and zooming through corridors like she was being chased. She entered the dark study out of breath and clutching her chest. Out of the darkness, the silhouette of a man appeared. Daenerys was frightened as it came toward her but then firm hands took her by the shoulders, and she realized the man before her was--

"Jon," she breathed, backing away and trying to gauge if this was a specter, a delusion, or a symptom of some grave illness.

"Dany, darling," he spoke, bringing her back to him and holding her tight against his chest.

Over the stench of horse hair and sweat, Daenerys could still make out the natural scent of her Jon Snow. She tilted her head up, and now that her eyes had adjusted to the dark, she could see his features well enough to know it was him. Those dark gray eyes, dark brows, and loose ringlets of black hair that never seemed to stay put. 

"We have to go," Jon said in a breath before pressing his chapped lips to her pillowing soft ones.

In a moment, he released the Princess from his grasp to pull her toward the door.

Daenerys tugged her wrist from his grip and demanded answers. "Where were you, Jon? I went to your chamber like we planned, and you were gone. Why did you leave me? Why have you come back now? Why didn't you tell me Ned Stark was your father? Was that your plan all along? To convince me to marry your brother to strengthen your family's power in the realm? Has my father not been generous enough to the Warden of the North, he had to send his bastard to convince me to marry his heir?"

"We do not have time for any of this," Jon said quickly, but any attempt to pull her along were in vein. She was angry and confused and on the verge of tears. Jon took a breath, took her face in his hands, and replied, "I came here to paint your portrait. That's all. I wasn't supposed to talk to you, to get to know you, to touch you, to love you. But I did. I don't want you to marry my brother. I desperately, desperately do not want you to marry my brother, or any of those Lords in there. I would do anything, risk anything, to be with you, Dany. I'm sorry I didn't realize that sooner."

After a beat to process, Daenerys quietly asked, "Where are we going?"

"Pentos," answered Jon, a smile in his voice. "Well, first Braavos, then Pentos."

The corners of Daenerys's mouth stretched in a wide, happy grin. "How?"

"Don't worry about that right now. We need to hurry, before anyone realizes you've left the Keep. Put this on." Jon went to the door and retrieved a long dingy cloak. He threw it over Daenerys's shoulders and wrapped her up tight in it, drawing the hood over her silver hair. "Come now, darling. We have a boat to catch."

* * * * *

Daenerys swore her heart had never beat so quick within her chest in all her nineteen years than when she ran off with Jon, escaping the Red Keep through the basement tunnels and fleeing down the city streets like they were being chased, because they very well may have been. She had hiked her skirts of her new gown up and tied the fabric in a knot at knee level to make movement faster, and she followed Jon to the Harbor docks where a trade ship was loading pallets of wine into the cargo hold.

Hand clasped firmly in Daenerys's, Jon found the captain making notations on parchment as he oversaw the handling of goods. An older man, weathered from so much sea travel to make him appear even older.

"Pardon me," Jon said to the man. "This ship is going to Braavos, is it not? Me and my. . . wife would like to book passage. I have gold." Jon extended three gold dragons for the man to take. He quickly did, but the man looked over them both skeptically.

"What's your name, boy?" he asked.

"Jon Snow."

The man scribbling the name onto his parchment. "And. . ." he craned his neck to peer at Daenerys's fair face beneath her hood, "the little lady?"

"Jenny," Daenerys quickly answered. "Jenny Waters."

The man coughed a small chuckle. "What's a couple of bastards to do in Braavos?"

"What's a couple of bastards to do in King's Landing?" Jon retorted.

The man grumbled in agreement and pointed them toward the ladder up to deck. "We'll fix you both up with a couple of hammocks."

"Actually," Daenerys said, dipping her hands beneath her cloak and removing the sapphire necklace her father had gifted her for this special occasion. She held it out to the captain, "we'd like a cabin."

The captain furrowed his heavy brow in surprise and suspicion. He plucked the necklace from Daenerys's hand and held it up to a lantern that dangled from the ship's edge. "Where'd you get somethin' like this, girl?" he asked.

"Does that really matter?"

The captain smirked, shoving the necklace into his vest pocket. "We'll set you both up in a cabin then."

* * * * *

Rhaella wove through the crowded hall, searching high and low for where her precocious daughter had been hiding, but the Queen could not see Daenerys anywhere. 

“Have you seen Daenerys?” she asked her husband, who was well into a third pitcher of wine. 

“What?” the old man croaked. 

“Our daughter, Aerys. Have you seen her?”

“Oh she's probably up in the balconies with one of the boys,” Aerys said with a dismissive wave of his hand. 

“I checked the balconies.”

“Well, ask Ser Barristan where she is. He's always got a watchful eye on her.”

“Ser Barristan is. . .” Rhaella released another sigh. “I'll go check her bed chambers.”

Rhaella crossed the Keep with wide strides and a hiked skirt, anger boiling under her flesh at her daughter's poor manners. An entire ball orchestrated just for her, and she had run off to hide in her bed over some bastard boy. She flung open the chamber door and marched into Daenerys's room. 

“Daenerys Targaryen, if you think you can sulk in your chambers the rest of the night you are sorely mistaken. I will drag you back down to the Great Hall by the hair if I must.”

But Rhaella heard nothing in the shadows of the dark room, not even a sniffle or a rustle of sheets. She quickly grabbed a lantern from the corridor and shown it over ever corner of her daughter's bed chamber, even under the bed frame, but Daenerys was nowhere to be seen. 

The first maid Rhaella came upon in the corridor was one of Daenerys's chambermaids. “Have you seen the Princess?” Rhaella asked, panic beginning to set in. 

“No, your Grace. Have you checked the Great Hall?” replied the teen-aged girl. Rhaella wanted to smack her across the face for such an answer, but that was never the sort of woman Rhaella was. Instead, she turned in a huff to inform her husband and the castle guards that the Princess was missing, and that she needed to be found at once. 

* * * * *

“You shouldn't have done that,” Jon told Daenerys as soon as they were alone in a small sleep cabin aboard the trade ship. The walls were tight, the ceiling short, but there was a soft bed with clean linens, a basin full of warm water in the corner, and a circular window that would bring in a bit of sunlight come morning. “He's going to remember us now.”

Daenerys removed her cloak and draped it on an iron hook behind the closed cabin door. “He was going to remember the purple-eyed bastard girl anyway. At least now we can be alone together.”

Jon took in the sight of her in her ruby gown still tied off at the knees. She hadn't lost any of her beauty in the two weeks they had been apart. In fact, she looked even more breathtaking than the image of her imprinted in Jon's mind. He took her in his arms and kissed her round cheeks and pink lips. 

“But I don't forgive you,” Daenerys murmured sadly. “You left me, made me feel like a fool. You broke my heart.”

“You don't understand, Dany. Ser Barristan – he knew about us--”

“No,” she protested.

“--After our final session, he forced me to leave the Keep. I was his captive while he transported me North. I broke away from him near the Twins and came straight back once I realized that I cannot live without you.”

“That's impossible. If Ser Barristan knew, then that means my parents knew.”

“You're mother knew.”

Daenerys shook her head. “No. She couldn't have. She saw how unhappy I was. Why would she want me to suffer?”

Jon caressed her cheek with the pad of his thumb, feeling the smooth, clean skin against his callouses. “I don't think she wanted you to suffer, Dany, but she was never going to let you be with me. No one is ever going to let you be with me. This is our only chance.”

Casting her eyes down, Daenerys solemnly whispered, “Will we ever seen our families again?”

“I don't know. Probably not.” Jon's heart clenched at the sight of her so sullen. He never wished her to be sad one day in her life, and yet sadness was all he seemed to deliver her. “It isn't too late, though. The ship hasn't left dock. . . If this isn't what you want. . .”

Daenerys lifted her gaze to meet his, eyes glossy and wide. She answered his unasked question by gliding her hand behind his neck and bringing him to her so that she could capture his lips between hers. Her tongue poked out to touch his, and they slowly licked each other among the heat of their breaths. 

The cabin suddenly quaked, shifting beneath their feet. The ship was lurching out of the docks now. “I hope they never find us,” Daenerys said with a small smile before resuming their sensual kiss. 

* * * * *

Rhaella had alerted the guards to search the entire grounds, and the Gold Cloaks to search the entire city. The drama brought Aerys out of his inebriation enough to croak out vicious promises. “If my daughter is not brought to my feet by morning light, I will slaughter every last one of you incompetent swine! I'll have all of your heads mounted on pikes throughout the city! Whoever brings her to me will be given a Lordship and a Keep with more servants than there are rooms to store them all!”

It wasn't until the ball had been shut down for three hours that Ser Barristan emerged through the doors of the Great Hall, marching to the throne and gasping for each breath. Rhaella descended the steps quickly. “What's going on?” she asked him. “Do you know where Daenerys is?”

“My guess is, she's with the bastard,” he answered in a gruff, sour voice. 

“Bastard?!” belched Aerys from where he stewed in his throne. “What bastard?!”

In a panicked breath, Rhaella said, “I thought he was with you. I thought--”

“He got away from me, your Grace,” the knight confessed shamefully. “He escaped me near the Twins about a week ago. I came straight back, figuring he would try and pull something. When I saw the Gold Cloaks were scouring the city for the Princess, my suspicions were confirmed.” 

“What suspicions?!” Aerys voice boomed. “What is going on?! I demand answers at once!”

Rhaella kept her eyes on Ser Barristan, overtaken by fear of her husbands reaction to the truth about their daughter, about what she had done with that boy. Mustering up all her courage, Rhaella turned to face her husband, but before she could reveal the truth, Ser Barristan interjected. 

“The bastard who was charged with painting the Princess's portrait has seduced her, manipulated her good sense, and has now kidnapped her.”

Rhaella cast a perplexed glance at the knight, unsure if he had done her, and Daenerys, a favor or not with his slanted explanation. Aerys rose from his grand iron chair and descended each step of the stone platform with a thick stomp. When he stood just before his wife, looming over her with his height and girth, he seethed, “So, the bastard you brought into our home had been having his way with my daughter right under my nose?”

“Aerys--”

Even at his ripe age, the power behind Aerys's palm as it cracked against the side of his wife's face never lost it's thunder. The momentum cast Rhaella to the stone floor. Before Ser Barristan could blink a sympathetic eye down at the Queen, Aerys was thrusting his finger against the knight's breastplate. “Find my daughter, and bring the bastard to me. I want him alive when I kill him.”

“He's Ned Stark's son,” Rhaella exclaimed through a whimper, struggling to lift herself. 

“Ned Stark?” grumbled Aerys. “We have another of Ned Stark's sons here, don't we?”

The guard behind Aerys answered, “I believe the Warden's heir is in the kitchens with a few of the other guests.”

“Take him to the dungeons,” Aerys commanded. 

“You can't!” Rhaella insisted. “Once Lord Stark gets word you've locked up his son, he will have half his banner men at our gates demanding his release.”

“Good,” Aerys croaked down at his wife. “I want Lord Stark here in person when I cut off his bastard's head.”

* * * * *

“You look stunning,” Jon told Daenerys as he sat upon the edge of their temporary bed, the roll of the sea swaying their temporary living quarters. 

Daenerys smiled – there was nothing like a compliment from the lips of the man she loved – while she soaked a clean rag in warm water. “Take off your tunic,” she instructed him, and when Jon's torso was bared, she took the damp cloth to his chest and cleaned away some of the weeks-old grime from his skin. 

“I want to clean you next,” Jon said with a small smirk. 

“I'm already clean.”

“I'll have to fix that.”

A blush spread across Daenerys's cheeks. Oh how she missed Jon's charming banter. She massaged the cloth against his torso, his shoulders, and his arms. When she curled her arm around to gently scrub his back, Jon curled his own arm around her waist and brought her between his parted legs. He opened his mouth and kissed her hungrily as warm water droplets rolled down the small of his back. 

Daenerys moaned into his kiss, but pulled away after mere moments. “Take off your trousers,” she instructed, voice low and hot. 

“As my Princess commands,” Jon replied, lifting his hips and shimmying out of his filthy pants. His cock was already half erect, hungry for attention after two weeks abstinence. 

Daenerys went back to the water basin and dipped the cloth into the water, turning it a pale brown. She brought the cloth out, rung out the excess water, then came back to Jon. She knelt before him, cleaning one foot then the other before gliding the cloth up each leg and swirling it around his knees, one by one. She nudged Jon's thighs apart, then caressed the sensitive flesh in slow circular motions. 

Jon leaned back on the mattress, resting on his elbows. He watched Daenerys clean him with a tingle in his gut. Every now and then the cloth would graze his scrotum, causing Jon's cock to twitch and fill with more blood. 

Daenerys took the rag back to the basin and soaked it once more. When she returned, she wore a devilish little smile upon her face, and squeezed the cloth until a small trickle of warm water sprinkled in thick droplets over Jon's cock and balls. 

“Dany,” Jon breathed through his arousal. 

Draping the cloth over her hand, Daenerys gently massaged Jon's pubis. She caressed away the ache in his balls from two weeks straight upon horseback. She polished the full length of his cock with the thin cloth until Jon was moaning softly into the air, eyes half-lidded. 

“Dany,” he said again, reaching for her, but Daenerys stepped back from him. 

She discarded the rag into the basin, then ever so slowly peeled her gown from her body. She reached behind her and untied her corset, releasing her body from it's confines, happy to never wear such a retched thing again. She toed off her black slippers, then lifted her shift until it was over her head and dropped to the floor with the rest of the clothing Daenerys found utterly unnecessary. 

“Come here,” Jon insisted, reaching his hand out to her once more. 

But Daenerys wasn't finished. For a full minute, she stood before him, naked in the glow of lantern light, her sex moist with lust and her nipples erect from the chill that seeped through the glass of the porthole window. She stood before him, teasing his eyes, while she uncoiled her hair from it's braids until her hair hung around her shoulders in a curtain of thick silver waves. 

Jon decided she was not simply his Princess then, but an angel. “Come here,” he tried once more with a sternness to his tone that told Daenerys he wasn't going to say it a third time. 

She came to him, crawling on top of him and straddling his hips. Jon lied flat and ran his hands all over her body, feeling her thighs and butt, her hips and belly, her breasts. . . He pulled her forward and brought a nipple to his mouth, immediately sucking it between his lips. He grazed her pebbled nipple with the edge of his bottom teeth. 

Daenerys gasped, her juices pooling in her channel just begging to be plundered. “Jon. Jon,” she breathed, tucking her chin down and watching Jon's mouth suckle her breast. “Jon, I need you inside me.”

A groan vibrated through his throat and he released her nipple. Oh how he wanted to make this last, but he was so hard, and so overwhelmed by lust that he couldn't stop himself from fucking her. He took her by the hips and moved her to his cock. 

Daenerys sat up, hovered above Jon's cock as he pointed it upward, aimed at her opening. Carefully, and with a fire raging in her belly, Daenerys inched downward. The thick head nestled between her folds and prodded at her still-inexperienced entrance. Her eyelids fluttered shut as her slick walls opened to accommodate Jon's girth. 

Jon sucked in a long breath as he felt Daenerys's sex consume his cock inch by inch. “That's it, darling,” he murmured, hands still holding her hips and urging her downward. “You feel fucking incredible.”

_Fucking incredible._

A wavering whimper lefts Daenerys's parted lips when she was sat on Jon's lap, the full length of his manhood tucked inside her, pulsing within her walls. She panted, almost fearful of moving at all. Why had she thought being on top was a good idea? How was Jon supposed to make love to her when she was sitting on top of him? 

“Are you alright?” Jon asked, lifting a hand to brush his fingers against her cheek. 

“I. . . I don't know what to do.”

“It's alright. What do you want?”

Daenerys swallowed down a ball of saliva, and she felt Jon's cock as her belly contracted. “I want to make you come.”

Jon returned both hands to her hips and guided them in a rolling, forward back motion, her cunt sliding part way off his cock only to suck it all back inside a moment later. Repeat. Daenerys released another whimper. She gripped Jon's hard shoulders for support and bit down on her bottom lip. 

“That's it,” Jon whispered, moving his hands away from her as soon as she got the hang of it. He moved his hands to her breasts instead, kneading the round flesh and rolling his thumbs across her nipples. 

“Yes,” Daenerys breathed, skin growing pink with arousal. “Jon. Jon.” He eyes opened and lock with his. “Jon?”

“What is it?”

“I want to come.”

Jon moved a hand between them, gliding it across her mound until his fingers found her swollen clit. He moved the other back to her hip and lifted her up just enough so that he could pump his own hips upward, thrusting his cock in and out of her in a steady rhythm. 

A look of intense pleasure spread across Daenerys's face, and her fingernails digging into Jon's shoulders told him she was nearing climax. 

“Tell me when you're going to come, darling,” he commanded through a low groan, enraptured by the euphoria Daenerys's love making brought out in him. 

A moment later, Jon's cock brushed against something deep within Daenerys that sent bolts of electricity coursing through her body. A high pitched squeal echoed through the cabin, followed by another as Jon thrust into her again. 

“Gods!” she cried, and Jon thought her nails may draw blood, but he hadn't the capacity to care about pain, his body so full of pleasure. “Gods, yes! Fuck! Fuck me, please!”

Gods. . . was this the first time Jon had ever heard such foul language leave the lips of his Princess? His scrotum tightened in a death grip around his balls, ready to flood Daenerys's channel with his seed, but he refused to let himself come until the precise moment Daenerys reached the pinnacle of her orgasm. 

“Tell me, Dany,” Jon demanded through a clenched jaw. “Tell me when you're going to come.”

“I. . . I. . . I'm. . .” She gave another series of yelps and high pitched moans as Jon fucked his cock against her sweet spot over and over again without reprieve. “I'm going to! I'm going to come!”

Jon rubbed her clit like he was trying to scrub a smudge out of his tunic, and a moment later Dany's whole body was quaking on top of him, and her moans came out as strangled whimpers. And it was then that Jon allowed himself release. He sat up, hooked an arm around her waist, and pumped his seed deep inside her through a series of grunts against her throat. 

“Please. Please,” she moan beside his ear, shaking and writhing in his lap as he fingered her clit and doused her channel with his cream. She shook and writhed in his lap, every movement milking more semen from his cock. 

When Jon's penis was spent and Daenerys was groaning from over-stimulation, Jon removed his hand from her sex and wrapped her up in both arms. He held her tight, their bodies flush together, clinging to each other in their afterglow. 

Daenerys let out a contented sigh, her cheek rested upon Jon's shoulder. “You've succeeded.”

“Hm?”

“I'm filthy now.”

Jon breathed a chuckled. “You can always be filthier. But, that can wait. Let's get some sleep. We'll be in Braavos tomorrow.”

“Then on to Pentos,” Daenerys sang as her eyes drifted shut. 

Jon laid them both down, pulling a sheet over top them, and despite his exhaustion, he stayed up a few extra minutes to watch Daenerys drift off to sleep with a soft smile played upon her lips.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Heavy angst ahead.

Jon's eyes blinked open with sign of first light. Oh to awaken all wrapped up in Daenerys's warm arms. Jon decided he never wanted to wake up another way. He climbed from their temporary bed and found his discarded pants, digging through the pockets til he found his most cherished possession.

He returned to bed, sitting above Daenerys's still slumbering form. The direwolf pendant came to rest between her breasts before Jon draped the chain around her neck, lifting her head gently to fasten the clasp.

The sensation stirred Daenerys awake, her amethyst eyes blinking to adjust to the light. Her limp hand reached up to touch the pendant. "Are you going to sketch me again?" she asked with a sleepy smile.

"I just want you to have it."

"I can't. It's yours," she quietly protested.

He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. "You're mine. This way, if it's with you, I'll always know where to find it."

Daenerys weaved her fingers through Jon's hair. "Then I shall always keep it safe for you."

As their lips touched again, the cabin rumbled suddenly, and the ship lurched to a sudden stop, nearly tossing them both from the bed.

Startled, Daenerys asked, "Are we in Braavos already?"

"We can't be," Jon replied, hopping from the bed. He went straight to the porthole window and peered out. The sight drained Jon of all his blood. His skin went pale as a ghost.

Daenerys sat up, "What's the matter?"

Jon did not answer. He turned silently from the porthole and began to dress.

"Jon?"

A clambering came from above them, up on deck. It sounded as if a dozen men were jumping on the floorboards.

Jon picked up Daenerys's gown and tossed it to the bed. "Get dressed, Dany."

"Why?" Panic boiled inside her. She fisted the bed sheets and clutched them to her breast. "What's going on? What did you see?"

The clambering never ceased, only grew louder and closer. Men marching down a narrow corridor. As Jon fastened his trousers, he looked at Daenerys fiercely. "I love you."

"I--"

The cabin door swung open so forcefully it crashed against the wall behind it, the knob beating a hole into the wood planks. Three Gold Cloaks marched into the tiny cabin, spears jutted out in front of them, pointed at Jon.

"Stop!" Daenerys cried, sliding from the mattress and moving in front of Jon, the only thing concealing her nudity from the armored men was the sheet she dragged along with her.

Jon quickly swept his arm around her and pulled her to his hip.

Ser Barristan appeared, relieving one of the men and taking his place between the others. "Come with me, my Princess."

"I'm not your Princess," Daenerys spat.

"It's alright, Dany," Jon told her gently, though nothing about this was even remotely alright. "Go with him."

"No." She spoke the word to the knight. "I love him."

Ser Barristan stepped forward and snatched Daenerys by the arm, ripping her from Jon's side. The action shocked Daenerys, and she screamed, swatting at his metal armor, even taking a swipe at his face with her nails, but the aged knight was still strong enough to drag her kicking and screaming out of the cabin. 

The two lovers were loaded into separate ships, two of the ten sent out to recover the Princess on the King's orders. Shackled in iron cuffs, wrists and ankles, Jon wondered if he would ever see Daenerys again. He wondered if he would ever live to see sunlight again. But, he figured he would trade the sun on his face for one more look at _his_ Princess's sweet face, one more touch of her soft hand, and one more gentle whisper from her smooth voice. 

* * * * *

Once transported back to the Red Keep, Jon was taken immediately to the dungeons and tossed into a cold cell. Three walls of thick stone and one made of iron bars. The floor was stone as well, and covered in soiled, damp hay. Moisture leaked from a drain in the ceiling. Jon couldn't tell if it was filthy water, or something worse. There wasn't a single window to offer him the time of day; the only light source was a single lantern dangling on the wall outside the iron bars. Without shirt or shoes, Jon shivered. 

“What'd you do?” asked a weaselly sort of voice. 

Jon peered to the opposite corner of the cell to see he wasn't alone. A scrawny young fellow sat slouched against the wall, casually, as if he had been sitting in that spot so long he considered it home. 

“I don't want to talk about it,” Jon muttered a reply, sitting down in his own corner and dragging his knees to his chest. 

The weaselly man cracked a crooked smile. “Well, ain't much else to do in 'ere. They sendin' you to the Wall, too?”

“Probably not.”

“Hm. What'd you do?”

Jon threw him a glare. “What did _you_ do?”

“Took somethin' that wasn't mine,” the weaselly man answered easily. “You're turn.”

“Yeah. . .” Jon sighed. “I suppose I took something that wasn't mine, as well.”

“As well? You sure talk fancy for someone who ain't got any shoes.”

Jon rolled his eyes. “I have shoes. I just didn't have time to put them on before the Gold Cloaks arrested me.”

“If you's only a thief, they probably sendin' you to the Wall. Only way you ain't getting' sent to the Wall is if you innocent and can prove it, or you committed treason. Then your headed toward the butcher's block.”

“Do you mind letting me be?” Jon snapped, irritated by the sound of the thief's voice and the truth it was spilling. 

“Jon?!” a voice echoed from the ceiling. 

Jon squinted his eyes up at the moist stone, recognizing the voice instantly. “Robb?!”

“Where are you?!”

“I'm in a cell! Where are you?!”

“Same,” Robb said sullenly. “I can hear you through this drain in the floor. All I've got is a bench to sit on and a bucket to piss in up here.”

“They gave you a bucket?!” asked the weaselly man. “I've been pissing in the corner for a week!”

Jon scrunched his nose at how obviously true that statement was. 

“Who is that?!” Robb asked. 

“It doesn't matter!” Jon replied. “Why are you in a cell?!”

“You tell me! They said you kidnapped the Princess, Jon! What in Seven Hells were you thinking?!”

“Gods,” spoke the weaselly man. “You sure did take somethin' that wasn't yours.”

Jon ignored the man and spoke toward the drain in the ceiling. “It isn't like that, Robb. I love her. We're in love. Daenerys and I. . . We were running away together.”

The weaselly man snickered. “Yeah, and me and Princess Elia are in love, too. She just don't know it yet.”

Jon threw another glare at him. 

“Gods, Jon,” Robb spoke through a groan. “You always have to find the most creative ways to get us both into trouble don't you? Well, congratulations, brother. You finally dragged me down to your level. Now we can take the Butcher's ax together.”

“Robb, even in the dungeons below the Red Keep, you are still literally on a higher level than I. And you won't get the ax. I'm sure they only locked you up as collateral.”

“Collateral?” 

Jon sighed. His Lord brother was one of the smartest men he knew, but it was difficult for Robb to understand the darker sides of these things, the manipulative side, the game. 

* * * * *

As soon as the raven landed in Winterfell carrying a scroll which detailed Jon's arrest, Lord Eddard Stark set off South on his fastest horse and with his most loyal banner men. When he stormed the Great Hall with his company in formation behind him, he was received by King Aerys perched upon his throne. To his right sat Queen Rhaella, and while Aerys looked stony and mean, Rhaella appeared haunted, broken even. To the left of Aerys sat his eldest son, Rhaegar, and the heir to the Seven Kingdoms. Ser Barristan and the King's Guard stood at attention across the perimeter of the hall. 

“What is the meaning of this?!” Ned demanded, holding up the scroll he received and tossing it to the floor. “I want my son released from your dungeons this instant!”

“Which one?” asked Aerys. “We have two.”

“I want them both released,” Ned seethed. 

“The North has been a formidable friend to the Crown since you became Warden of the North, Lord Stark, and as a way to help nurture that relationship, I will allow you to take one of your sons home with you today. I'll even let you pick which one. So who will it be? The bastard who raped and kidnapped my daughter, the Princess of these Seven Kingdoms, or the heir to Winterfell?”

Ned's face twitched with anger and concern for his bastard son. “Jon would never do such a thing. There must be a mistake.”

“There is no mistake, my Lord. Why, Ser Barristan even caught him in the act of defiling poor Daenerys just before arresting him on the charge of treason.”

“Treason? Jon is no traitor, and I refuse to believe he would hurt your daughter.”

“Are you saying Ser Barristan is a liar? I remember you thinking him a hero of yours when you were still too young to lift a sword.”

Beneath his helmet, Ser Barristan's jaw clenched with anger. He hated the bastard, but for the King to use his reputation to get away with a lie was almost too much for him to take. He shared a look with Rhaella, a look that said this was all going to far. They were just kids who made foolish mistakes in the name of love. 

“I do not think him a liar, but--” Ned started. 

“So who will it be?” asked Aerys. “Which son are you taking home to Winterfell? The bastard, or your heir?”

Ned's blood turned icy. Never before had he felt so powerless. Bravado faltering, he asked, “What will Jon's sentence be?”

Aerys turned to Ser Barristan and ordered him to release Robb from his cell and deliver him to his father at once. With a nod, the knight went off in the direction of the dungeons. Ned's heart broke as he remembered the day he brought Jon home with him, swaddled in kitchen rags. He had sworn never to abandon him again. 

Aerys turned back to Ned, and answered his inquiry. “There will be a trial for the bastard, though I'm sure he will be found guilty, since we have a trusted eye witness to the crime, after which he will be sentenced to death.”

The word _death_ cut through Ned like a rusty dagger. “You can't be serious,” he protested. 

“What would you have me do, Ned?!” Aerys seethed, sitting upright in his throne and thrusting a finger Ned's way. “Death is the only way to give back some small piece of my daughter's honor.”

But Ned, and all the Gods, knew that it was not Daenerys's honor Aerys sought to avenge. It was his own.

Ned looked from the King to Rhaella, but she was vacantly staring at one spot of the floor before her. He then looked to Rhaegar, a man with children the same age as Jon. Surely, he would sympathize. But the Prince sat stoic in his chair, content to allow Aerys to see through his plans. 

“I won't allow this to happen,” Ned said. “I will go to war for my son if I have to.”

Aerys let out a gruff chuckle. “And who of your banner-men will be willing to follow you into battle against the most powerful armies in the realm, and possibly die, all for a bastard we'd have long killed by then?”

Ned swallowed the lump in his throat. “At least, allow me to see him before I go.”

After a moment, Aerys gave a single nod. 

* * * * *

Sitting in what may or may not have been a puddle of a stranger's urine, Jon listened while Robb was unshakled and removed from his cell. As glad as he was that his brother would not longer have to suffer for Jon's own actions, Jon couldn't help but wish he had a little bit longer to talk with Robb before being left all alone. He wouldn't even have the company of the thief either, for the Night's Watch came and got him three days ago. Or, what Jon thought was three days. Robb had been his only source of time, since he had a small window in his cell to see a glint of daylight out of.

Minutes later, a nearby door creaked open and the sound of footsteps moved closer and closer until Ser Barristan came into view outside the cell door. The sight of the knight angered Jon, and he wanted nothing more than to spit in his face for how he handled Daenerys. But then Jon saw his Lord father step up to the cell door beside Ser Barristan.

"Father?" Jon said, eyes spontaneously misting with tears. He crawled to the cell door on hands and knees, body week from the poor quality and volume of food he'd been served over the last couple of weeks. He grabbed the bars and used them to pick himself up. When standing, Ned examined his son's deteriorating state, his lean torso now thin and covered in sores from the vermin that shared his living quarters.

"Jon," said Ned, reaching his hand through the bars and resting his palm upon his son's cheek, skin freezing to the touch. "You have really gotten yourself into some trouble this time, haven't you?"

Jon smiled despite his condition. There was no reason to be fearful any longer. His father was here and had straightened everything out. All would be alright now. Ned would take him home just as he was taking Robb home.

"I need you to do something, Jon," Ned said earnestly. He glanced sideways at Ser Barristan, then back at Jon. "When you're taken to trial, I need you to demand trial by combat."

"What?" Jon's heart sank to the depths of his belly. "You're not getting me out?"

"Jon, you're being charged for rape and kidnap of the King's daughter."

"What?!" Jon exclaimed in utter shock. "That isn't true. That's not what happened. I didn't-- She loves me, father. I didn't rape her. I promise you. I would never hurt her. We just. . . We just wanted to be together."

Ned was silent for some time before replying, "It doesn't matter. This is the situation we're in now. Demand a trial by combat, and name me as your champion."

Jon's face contorted in confusion. "Father, I can't-- What if you--"

"Don't worry about that."

"No," Jon said. "Let them put me on trial. There is no way they can prove I hurt Daenerys." He turned to Ser Barristan. "You know I didn't hurt her. You heard what she said."

The knight remained stoic, never even acknowledging Jon's words.

"You will lose the trial, Jon," Ned insisted. "It doesn't matter what the truth is. You'll lose, and you'll be sentenced to die. But in a trial by combat, I can try to save you."

"I won't let you die for me," said Jon.

"Oh, son. You always underestimate your father." Ned smiled sadly and gave Jon's ear a pat. "Stay strong."

Jon nodded for his father's benefit, but in fact he felt the opposite of strong. He felt completely shattered. Was it possible that his mid-aged father could defeat a champion of the King's choice? Sure, Ned had been a notable fighter back in his day, but fatherhood and administrative duties took a toll on him physically. He was no longer in the shape he had been in when Jon was a little boy and thought his father akin to a mythical warrior. Was it possible that, even if Ned did defeat the King's champion, Jon would even be glad? Perhaps death would be kinder than a life exiled from his true love. 

* * * * *

It was supper time, and just as was customary, Aerys insisted on his family partaking in the meal together at a long table carved from the trunk of a thick Northern oak. Because of all the controversy, Prince Rhaegar and his family remained in King's Landing so that he might assist his father in any strategic matters; however, it seemed Aerys's head had grown thicker since his heir took over Lordship of Dragonstone. 

Rhaegar's children, Prince Aegon and Princess Rhaenys were three and four years older than Daenerys, and yet they acted even more petulant, swatting at each other between bites of veal. Elia, Rhaegar's Dornish wife sat by his side. Time away from her home in the far South had paled her skin, but she still stood in stark contrast to the Targaryens and their silver hair, light eyes, and alabaster skin tones. She knew what it was like to be the black sheep – black for the color of her thick hair. When Aegon had been born with olive skin, Aerys had sneered at the sight. But, it would not matter, Elia thought. Aerys was old, and soon he would die, Rhaegar would ascend to the throne, and Elia's little Prince would become heir to all the Seven Kingdoms, no matter which of his parents' features he possessed. 

“Where are you going with that?” snapped Aerys in his usual robust and demeaning tone. He snapped his fingers at the kitchen girl who had removed Daenerys's untouched plate from the place setting where no one sat. 

The young girl quivered in fright, plate shaking in her delicate hands. “Takin' it to the Princess. She hasn't eaten in days, yer Grace.”

“If my daughter wants to eat, she will descend from her tower and eat with her family,” Aerys barked. 

“I told the girl it was alright,” Rhaella admitted. “She's wasting away up there.”

Aerys leered at his wife. “And if we give into her tantrum, she will never learn to behave as a woman should.” He snapped once more at the kitchen girl. “Put that plate down!”

The girl complied before scurrying off in a fit of tears. A moment later, Elia stood from her chair so abruptly the feet screeched against the stone beneath. 

“Don't,” Rhaegar muttered, but Elia was resolved. 

She walked purposefully around the table and took the plate from Daenerys's vacant position, then swiftly turned and left the dining room in the direction of the Princess's chambers. Rhaegar cast his gaze warily at his father, to see the old man sneering back at him. It was Rhaegar's fault after all, that he had not broken his wife into complete subservience to him. But, that wasn't the sort of Prince, nor the sort of man, Rhaegar was or would ever wish to be. 

Elia pushed passed the guards ordered to stand watch by the Princess's bed chambers and rapped gently on the chamber door. When she heard not a sound, Elia pushed forth the door and stepped inside. The curtains were opened, and Daenerys sat with her knees to her chest on the window bench, staring out the slates of the shutters. It was a full moon tonight, letting in a bit of light and illuminating Daenerys's silhouette in even more silver. 

Daenerys had changed her night dress at least. No longer was the fabric at her back stained with lines of blood from where the whip had broken her skin. Had Elia arrived in King's Landing with her family a day sooner, she could have stopped her father-by-law from ordering such a brutal punishment. At least, that was what the Dornish Princess told herself at night, when all she could think of was _what if it had been Rhaenys?_ She would have strangled Rhaegar with her own hands before allowing him to order their only daughter flogged by a beastly guard with no conscience. 

“Daenerys,” Elia spoke, pushing the chamber door shut. “It's Elia. I've brought you supper.”

Unmoving, Daenerys replied hoarsely, “I am not hungry.”

“Pain and heartache can do that, but you must eat. It's important.”

“What is important?” spoke Daenerys in a half-dead manner. Too much milk of the poppy, Elia wondered. “That I remain living just to be sold off to a stranger, become his property, let him use me to produce heirs, and then spend the rest of my life raising his children so that they might be just as cruel as him?”

“It only seems that way now,” Elia replied, setting the plate on Daenerys's table and stepping closer to her sister-by-law. She sat carefully on the bench to face Daenerys. In the weeks since arriving back at King's Landing, this was the first time Elia really looked upon the girl's face, and she realized just how much damage this whole affair was causing. Daenerys's eyes were bloodshot, her skin white as snow and just as cold to the touch. Her hair looked as if it hadn't been brushed out in months. Elia reached toward the table and retrieved a hairbrush, then scooted closer to her sister, took a handful of long silver, and ran the brush through the snarls. Even when the brush tugged, Daenerys did not flinch. Her face remained stoic, and her eyes trained on the moon. 

“You don't know that your husband will be cruel,” Elia said in a soft mothering tone she had learned from two decades of raising her own children. “I've heard talk. Apparently the King has been conspiring with Olenna Tyrell to wed you to Ser Loras. He hasn't a reputation of cruelty, and I don't think he'll be wanting to lie with you any more than is absolutely necessary.” 

Daenerys did not respond for some time, but soon, her expression shifted to show true emotion, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “I have heard talk as well. They're going to kill him, aren't they?”

Elia put the brush down and took Daenerys's hand into her lap, rubbing gently the icy skin. “You shouldn't think of such things.”

“Why is it right that a man should die just because he loves me?”

“It isn't right,” Elia admitted. “It's just. . . how it is.”

“When will they do it?”

“The trail is day after tomorrow.”

Daenerys gave a small nod. She turned to the table and took the plate of supper into her lap long enough to push open the window shutter. She turned over the meat and green to slop down to the cobblestones six flights down.

* * * * *

At night, there was only one guard manning Daenerys's door, Ser Janos Slynt, a pudgy fellow with white hair and a way of looking at Daenerys like she was always wearing less than she was. How he became a knight, Daenerys did not know. But the guard to take his place after his shift would be the Hound, and Daenerys knew she would never be able to sway him to doing her a favor. 

Daenerys slipped out of her chamber door when the moon was in its highest position and was met immediately by Slynt's suspicious stare. 

“You're not allowed to wander so late at night, Princess.”

“I'm not allowed to wander anywhere at anytime anymore,” Daenerys corrected him with a frown. “I just want to go for a walk at a time when I do not have to face anyone. Please? I need to get out of these chambers for just a little while.”

“I have strict orders to make sure you do not leave your chambers.”

Daenerys sighed, wrapping her arm around herself. “Can't you. . . take a break for a few minutes?”

“I don't need to take a break,” replied the aged man. “But, maybe I could turn the other way if you show me your sweet tits.”

Daenerys backed away from the man with a cringe, tightening her hold on herself.

“Relax, Princess,” said Slynt. “Take your leave. I don't give two shits. But you better be back before my shift is up, or I'll go straight to the King.”

“Really?” asked Daenerys, a glimmer of thanks in her eyes, but she did not wait for an answer before she ducked her head and hurried down the corridor in the direction of the stairs, down, down, down all the way to the dungeons. She realized in this moment that she had never been to the dungeons before, and it struck her with an uneasy feeling to know that the city's criminals had been living underneath her home throughout her life. But she was grateful for that fact in equal measure, because as soon as the shift guard manning the lower cells stepped away for a piss, Daenerys was able to sneak into the corridor and scan each cell for a sight of Jon. 

Some cells were empty and some contained a few lowly people who hissed crude things at her as she passed, but when Daenerys reached the very last cell, she felt a warmness around her that could only be caused by her love being close. 

“Jon?” she whispered into the shadow of the cell, hands gripping the bars. She heard the sound of feet shuffling against hay and stone, then the familiar tenor of Jon's voice.

“Dany?”

“Jon,” Daenerys spoke again in a small gasp. 

Jon came to the cell door and into the dim amber light so that Daenerys could look upon his state. Oh how wretched he looked. Pale and greased in filth. He smelled of a dog kennel. Were they even feeding him? Tears prickled beneath her eyelids. She outstretched her arms through the bars and tried to hold him, but it was too difficult so she took his pale face into her hands instead, the whiskers having grown to a scraggly beard from so much time without a blade. 

In ironic fashion, the first phrase to leave Jon's mouth was, “You look terrible.”

Daenerys let out a sad chuckle as the first of many tears fell. 

“Beautiful,” he added, “but terrible. Have you eaten anything at all since I last saw you?”

“Jon, I don't care about myself. I must save you, but I don't know how. There are guards outside my chambers all day and night. I can only leave if escorted, and only if my father permits it. He's going to marry me to Loras Tyrell, but I'll die before that happens. Tell me what to do.”

“Dany.” Jon peeled her hands from his face and cradled them to his bare chest. “This is what you must do. You must eat. You must take care of yourself. Do you think I want you wasting away along with me? All I want is for you to be safe and happy. I thought that I could make you those things, but it's impossible now. You are going to be so happy in Highgarden.” 

Daenerys bowed her head and wept. “If you die, I don't want to live.”

“Don't say that,” Jon commanded, giving her hands a firm squeeze. “Do you still have the necklace?”

Swallowing down a sob, Daenerys took a hand from Jon and dipped it into her cloak, pulling out the pendant whose chain was still wrapped securely about her neck. 

“Good,” Jon said with a small smile. “Keep it always, and that way I'll always be with you.”

“It's not enough,” Daenerys argued.

“I know, but it's all there is now.”

“I wish you'd never met me.”

“Don't say that.”

“I mean it. Had you never met me, none of this would have happened, and you'd be safe.”

Jon felt his heart seize up at how true that statement was. Had he never met Daenerys, Jon would most likely be in Winterfell right now, riding horses with his sister, Arya, and teaching Bran to hold a sword. He'd be laughing before a blazing hearth as Rickon told him in broken baby-talk all about his day dreams. He would be trying to make his father proud, rather than putting him to shame. But, somehow, Jon had not thought about any of those things while he was imprisoned. All he thought about was Daenerys, Pentos, the lemons, the sand, and their children. 

“I don't wish that,” Jon said. “Not for one moment. Getting to love you, for however short it is, has been the best thing I've ever done. Nothing in this world has ever made me feel half as alive, or as important, as I felt in your arms.”

“Oh, Jon,” Daenerys whimpered. “I will miss you so terribly.” 

“We will see each other again, Dany.”

Her head shook. “I won't be permitted to attend the trail. My father can't risk me telling the truth in front of everyone, that you never once hurt me, and that you never forced me to run away with you – that I love you.”

“That's good. I don't want you to witness it. We will see each other after. I'll be waiting for you, watching your wonderful life and all the pretty things you're going to see. And when the Gods see fit, you'll come back to me, just as you are now, and we'll be together finally. We'll go wherever we want. Pentos, or maybe somewhere off this world all together.”

“Jon,” whispered Daenerys. “I will always love you. No matter what happens. No matter what you see when you're watching me. I will always love you.”

“I know,” replied Jon, dipping his hand through the bars to stroke the tears from her cheeks with his thumb. “I need you to go now, before anyone sees you. And I need you to eat. Promise me.”

“I promise.” 

With one last kiss, Daenerys left her love in his cell, crying into the hem of her cloak as she hurried back to her bed chambers before the Hound would replace Slynt and discover her missing. 

The first thing she did when she was locked back away in her own prison, was devour a red apple from the untouched fruit bowl in the center of her table. She ate a pear straight after for good measure, hoping to make Jon proud in whatever small way she could. 

* * * * *

“You cannot kill the boy,” Rhaella fiercely projected. With all the many rooms in this great Keep, it always seemed the most pertinent of discussions happened in hers and Aerys's bed chambers. 

“You have the weak heart of woman,” Aerys retorted. “It isn't your fault, but I will not let your misguided compassion for bastards sway my decision. He must die.”

“Mother is right,” spoke Rhaegar, the first statement to leave his mouth since coming into the conversation a half hour ago. “If Ser Barristan is correct, and Ned Stark plans to fight for his son's life. . . We cannot let that happen.”

“Ned Stark.” Aerys cackled the name like his Warden of the North was a mere cockroach beneath his boot. “The North needs grain, I order grain sent from the Reach. The North needs men at the Wall, I send our able-bodied criminals to them rather than make use of them here, repairing the capital of this damned country. But when I need something, _retribution,_ Ned Stark is there to stand in my way.”

“If Ned Stark should die,” Rhaegar began, “the North will revolt against the Crown. They will declare themselves independent, as they have been threatening to do for centuries. We will go to war--”

“And we will win!” Aerys exclaimed. 

“Eventually. But not before half our armies are slaughtered, and half the women and children in the realm starve to death because their husbands and fathers went off to war just so their King could seek revenge on the boy who fell in love with his daughter. How will our position be when the people who remain realize that it was all for nothing?”

Rhaella watched her son with a glimmer of pride in her eyes that she had raised such a practical man. Aerys, however, looked upon his eldest son in disgust. But, even he could not argue with such logic. The survival of the Targaryen line, and the power it ensnares, must be put above all else. 

* * * * *

It was the night before the trial, and the only reason Jon knew it was nighttime was because of the specific guards who went on duty. He had eaten all of a stale hunk of bread and a ladle of porridge since the previous night, though he supposed there was no point in nourishing himself when he would not be alive to see the next nighttime. 

Footsteps tapped down the corridor and toward his cell. Not the clunking footsteps of the guards, but quick delicate steps – a woman's steps. 

“Dany?” Jon asked into the air. 

But the woman who appeared before Jon's cell was not Daenerys, though she looked very much like his Princess. It was the Queen, and she looked hurried. She knelt at the door so that Jon would not have to rise. He was too startled to move, but he did manage to ask, “What is going on?”

“There is a way for you to survive the trial,” Rhaella told him in a whispered breath. “I've just gotten finished discussing the matter with my husband and son. We are now in agreement that your death will only do more harm to the situation.”

Jon looked upon the Queen's fair, aged face with confusion. 

“You will confess in front of the gallery, and then my husband will sentence you to the Wall.”

“Confess to what?”

“You must confess to raping Daenerys, and to stealing her against her will to keep as your slave and bargaining chip to extort the realm.”

Jon snapped his head, giving the Queen full view of the disgust in his expression. “I will not confess to that. It is not true.”

“I know that,” said Rhaella calmly. “And my husband knows that. But, it doesn't really matter what the truth is. You have two options. You can confess to something you did not do and save your father, your brothers and sisters, and Daenerys from unbelievable heartache, or you can cling to what's true, have your father champion you in a trial by combat, and watch him die before you are beheaded.”

Jon's head shook in disbelief at his ever-altering predicament. 

“And after you and your father are dead, the realm will erupt in war,” Rhaella continued. “My husband and son believe we would win in such a war, but they underestimate how many enemies we have. If we should lose, if the Targaryen reign should fall and the throne usurped by Jon Arryn, Robert Baratheon, Tywin Lannister or one of the other high Lords, do you think they would leave any Targaryen left living to besmirch their claim? We will all be killed. Not only the King, myself and Rhaegar, but my son Viserys, too. Princess Elia. Rhaenys and Aegon. Daenerys. They would kill us all. So you see, I am not coming to you with a gift. I am asking you for a favor. Go to the Wall. You can make a name for yourself there. You seem a smart and capable young man. You'd probably be named Lord Commander within a few years. You'd be close enough to Winterfell that you could visit with your family from time to time. You would never see Daenerys again. . . but you would be alive to hear of her happiness.” 

Jon remained silent for some time before he eventually gave a defeated nod. He would confess. To save his father, and to save Daenerys, he would confess to anything.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Heavy angst ahead.

Daenerys knew the trial had begun when she peered out her window to see throngs of Lords and Ladies of the Crownlands filing into the Red Keep. It would be a show for them. Seeing a peasant beheaded was one thing, but for a bastard to get the ax, all the better. It solidified in their ignorant minds that the bastards they themselves forced into the world through their infidelity were not worth the coin they paid to the child's common mother to not come begging for more. 

When it was all over and Jon had confessed in front of all those Lords and Ladies, including his father and brother, to the crimes of rape and kidnapping with intent to extort, they all got to witness his sentence. The Wall would gain another bastard, and the Lords and Ladies groaned at the missed opportunity for a fun beheading. 

Daenerys, however, did not know of Jon's confession, nor of the deal which provoked him to do so. When Elia, stomach sick from having to watch the trail beside her disgraceful father-by-law, came upon Daenerys's chambers, the door was flung open and inside, four guards were wrestling a thick shard of glass out of her hand. The silver-haired Princess was having a fit, screaming at the top of her lungs that she would kill them all. 

“Daenerys!” Elia went to her sister to pry the men from over top her, but as soon as she reached them, they stepped back. One of them had snatched the glass from the Princess's hand and now she lay in a heap on the rug, hand bloody. Elia stooped and pushed all the hair from Daenerys's face. 

“They won't let me leave,” Daenerys cried. “I need to go to the Great Hall. I need to see him again.”

Elia cradled the girl in her lap, shooing the guards away until they were back at their post outside the chamber door. “There there, Dany. The trial is all over with.”

Daenerys sobbed against Elia's fine gown. “He's gone. He's gone and I don't want to be alive if he is not.”

“He isn't dead, dear sister. Your father allowed him to confess, and in exchange, Jon will go to the Wall and take the Black.”

It took a minute for the words to process in Daenerys's mind, but slowly the tears calmed and she was able to sit up. “The Wall?”

“Yes.” Elia smiled. “I know it's a dreary place, but he can make something of himself there. Many great men have taken the black. Your own granduncle is Maester of Castle Black.”

A smile stretched across Daenerys's tear stained face. “He is not dead.”

“No.”

Daenerys wobbled til standing. “Then I must go find him,” she exclaimed, skittering to her wardrobe to put on a clean dress. 

Elia frowned, so sorrowful for the poor girl. “Daenerys, you cannot.”

“If he is alive, I have to be with him,” Daenerys replied, pulling dresses from her wardrobe, bloodying them from her wound, and throwing them onto her bed.

Elia took Daenerys by her shoulders and said, “No, Daenerys. Don't you see? That is what got you both into this mess in the first place. I know you love him, but it is utterly impossible for you two to ever be together. You will marry Ser Loras and move to Highgarden just as I married your brother and moved to Dragonstone. Jon will take the Black, a vow to take no wives and father no children for as long he should live. It is over Daenerys. Let it be over.”

Reality set in, and Daenerys felt weak once more. “But if I do not see him, how will I know he is truly alive? How will I know you aren't just telling me these things to make me feel better?”

“I would not lie to you,” Elia insisted, feeling a rush of guilt overtake her when she remembered the words King Aerys muttered to Ser Barristan after the trial had concluded:

“Make certain the bastard does not make it back to the North alive.”

* * * * *

Old Olenna Tyrell arrived in King's Landing accompanied by her two grandchildren, Margaery and Loras, both honey-haired and strikingly pretty. “Growing Strong” were the Tyrell House words, and they certainly had grown strong, becoming one of the richest families in all of the Seven Kingdoms. Had it not been for Loras's well know proclivity toward the harder sex, Ladies from all across the country would be throwing themselves at his feet. Lady Olenna had heard about Daenerys's affair and decided to capitalize on it. The King would never have seriously considered marrying his daughter to someone of Loras's inclinations, but now the Princess was damaged goods and the King could not be so picky. 

Upon their arrival, Daenerys was instructed to leave her bed chambers to sit with the Tyrells over tea in the gardens. Daenerys's attendance was mandatory, and if she refused, Aerys permitted the Hound to flog her until she complied. As soon as Daenerys saw the whip, she allowed her chamber maids to dress her, the scars across her back from the last flogging still tender. 

The Hound escorted Daenerys down to the gardens, commanded to remain within sight of the Princess at all times during the meeting. The Tyrells were already seated, as was Rhaella, chatting about the even weather. 

“Gods,” Olenna spoke when her eyes found Daenerys. “Aren't you a beauty?”

Daenerys forced a small smile as she sat in the empty seat between her mother and Lady Margaery. Across from her sat Loras, and Daenerys refused to even meet his eye. 

“I heard you hadn't been eating,” said Olenna. “I'm happy to see you aren't too thin.”

“She was feeling ill for a while,” Rhaella explained. “But she's been getting her appetite back the last couple of weeks.”

Olenna hummed under her breath and nodded, eyeing Daenerys with skepticism. Beside Daenerys, Margaery sized the Princess up, analyzing her features and finding herself similarly skeptical. 

“Have a lemon cake,” Rhaella told Daenerys, placing one on the plate before her. 

The smell of citrus overwhelmed Daenerys, turning her stomach. She had been eating nothing but pears, bread and milk for weeks. “No thank you,” she said. 

“Daenerys, you love lemon cakes,” Rhaella urged, telling Daenerys that she had better eat in front of their guests or suffer punishment. 

Daenerys scooped up the cake and brought it to her lips, holding her breath while she took a small bite and swallowed it quickly.

“Well, isn't this lovely,” Olenna said jovially. “Although it does seem strange that we should be having tea with no tea available to drink.”

“It will be right out, I'm sure,” Rhaella assured the impatient Olenna with forced nicety. 

“I hope you are sure. In the meantime, how about we let Loras and Daenerys meet one another properly,” Olenna suggested. 

Daenerys and Loras walked leisurely through the garden, followed at a short distance by the Hound. Loras, who had a distaste for such brutish men, found his presence off putting. “Do you always have an escort like this?” he asked Daenerys. 

“He's here to make sure I do not run away,” Daenerys answered honestly. 

“Why would you run away? Am I that terrible?” Loras offered a charming smile which usually put young women at ease. It did the opposite with Daenerys. She seemed resolved to dislike him. 

Loras lead Daenerys to sit with him beside one of the many fountains on the grounds. Daenerys sat, but kept her eyes trained on the ground. 

“I want you to know, Princess,” began Loras in a gentle tone. “I don't mind that you've been with another. It doesn't bother me.”

“Because you fancy men,” Daenerys stated dryly. 

“That disgusts you?”

“It disgusts me that I have to marry you and not the man I love.”

Loras nodded and heaved a slow sigh. “I also wish I could marry the man I love.”

Daenerys finally looked at the young Lord, squinting her eyes in surprise. “Who?” she asked. 

“Do you promise not to tell?” 

She nodded. 

“Lord Renly Baratheon.”

Daenerys's eyes widened. “Renly? I had no idea he was. . .”

“Well, he's a better liar than I am,” said Loras sadly. 

“Jon liked Renly,” said Daenerys sadly. “He thought he was a good man.”

“Jon Snow, right? Lord Stark's bastard? I met him a couple of times. He seems like a good man as well.” Loras tried another smile. “And quite dashing. Handsome but with a rugged quality. I can understand why you were so taken by him.”

Daenerys felt a sudden rush of emotions take hold of her. Her eyes watered, and within moments she was crying into a handkerchief Loras hastily pulled from his pocket. “I ruined his life.”

“I'm sure you did not.”

“I did,” Daenerys insisted. “I ruined his life, but still he said I was worth it. After all the pain I caused him, he still said he would love me always.”

Loras rested his hand between her shoulder blades, and after a subtle flinch, Daenerys allowed the comfort. “I won't be jealous, you know,” Loras told her, “if, after we're married, you wished to write to him at the Wall.”

Daenerys looked at the young Lord for any sign that the offer was in jest, but Loras looked earnest. Finally, a real smile formed upon her face. Perhaps being Loras's wife would not be such a burden if he would permit her to talk to Jon again. Perhaps they would only ever again be able to write to each other from afar, but in that moment, Daenerys believed her best chance of being with Jon in any way again was through her marriage to Loras. 

After tea, Olenna suggested that Margaery walk Daenerys back to her bed chamber and save the young Princess from a long trek alone with the retched Hound. Daenerys found Loras's older sister friendly – too friendly. She hooked her arm around Daenerys's immediately, leaning into her like they were old friends. Daenerys did not have any old friends. She would occasionally make friends with her chamber maids before they were fired. Other than that, and her family, the closest relationship Daenerys had was with Jon. 

“Tell me everything,” Margaery said with a big sweet smile as they walked toward the Keep. 

“About what?” asked Daenerys warily. 

“You know. I've heard all the rumors and gossip, but I'm dying to hear the truth from you.”

“The truth?”

“About you and Ned Stark's bastard.”

“Well, he didn't rape me,” Daenerys muttered. 

“No, I suspected he did not. But, you did lie with him, right?”

Daenerys leaned away from Margaery in distrust. 

“Oh, you can tell me,” the Lady urged. “I met Jon once a few years ago. He didn't quite look like a man yet, but I could tell he was going to be a real lady-pleaser one day. Little did I know he would go on to seduce the King's daughter.”

“I don't want to talk about this,” Daenerys said. 

They reached Daenerys's bed chambers and Margaery stopped the Princess before she could return to her cell. “You can trust me, Princess. I know what it's like. I've lain with men, too.”

Daenerys's eyes bulged at the Lady. “Who have?” She glanced toward the Hound and the other three guards loitering in the corridor. “Do you want to come in?”

Margaery's face glimmered a yes, and the two young women escaped from the guards into Daenerys's bed chambers. Daenerys pulled Margaery to sit beside her upon the bed. Margaery found it all so precious. 

“When did you lay with a man?” Daenerys asked, face alight with intrigue. 

With a flip of her hair, Margaery replied, “Lots of times.”

“With whom?”

“Lots of men.”

“Lots?”

Margaery nodded pridefully. 

“I don't understand. How have you been able to lie with men and not be punished?”

“Well, Princess, when I lay with a man, it's just for a bit of fun. I never fell in love with any of them. And I certainly never told my father my flower had already been plucked.” Margaery grasped Daenerys's hands warmly. “Now tell me, how was Jon Snow?”

“What do you mean?”

A honey eyebrow raised high above Margaery's blue eye. “How was he in bed?”

“I don't know.”

“Sure you do.” Margaery leaned in closer. “I mean, how did it feel. Was it good? Bad?”

“It was. . .” Daenerys swallowed, “incredible. . . magical. . .” she smiled, “fun.”

Margaery grinned ear to ear. “See. That's it. Tell me more.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Well. . . What all did he do to you?”

“Lots,” Daenerys replied cheekily. 

“Oh, you have to give me more than that. Come on, Princess. Don't be shy. Trust me, I have done it all myself, so nothing you say can shock me.”

“You've done it all?” asked Daenerys, somewhat jealous that this woman was so experienced that she knew that she had done everything there was to do, while Daenerys didn't even know how many things there were that one could do.

Margaery nodded. “For example. . . Did Jon ever put his mouth on you, down there?”

Daenerys's cheeks turned bright pink, and she nodded. She remembered the feel of his tongue in her sex and his lips around her clit. For the first time in two moons, Daenerys felt a tingling between her thighs. 

“And did you ever put your mouth on him, down there?”

Again, Daenerys nodded.

“Did you swallow his seed?”

Daenerys's face looked like a tomato. “What else is there to do with it?”

Margaery wore a wicked smile. “Oh, Daenerys. You are a naughty Princess. I like you.”

It felt good to be able to speak so openly about matters Daenerys thought she would have to keep secret her whole life. “One time,” Daenerys began, lowering her voice to a quiet whisper, “while he had his mouth on me, he put his finger inside my bum.”

Margaery squealed with joy. “Jon Snow. What a man. I am sincerely jealous of you, Daenerys. I might have to ride down to the Wall and find out what I've been missing.” When Margaery saw the smile on Daenerys's face falter, she quickly gave the Princess's hands a squeeze and said, “I'm only joking, Daenerys. I hope you know that.”

“I know.”

“I must know, though. . . Did he ever put it inside you?”

“It?”

“His cock.”

Again, Daenerys's face went red and she laughed through her embarrassment. “Yes. Twice.”

“And did he finish inside you?”

The memory of Jon's seed coating her depths aroused her and made her sex warm and moist. She nodded. 

Margaery smiled warmly at Daenerys and brought her into a firm embrace. The young Lady ran her hand through Daenerys's hair like a mother would sooth a child, though Margaery was only a handful of years older than Daenerys. “Sweet Princess,” she cooed. “I am so sorry for all the misfortune you have suffered.” She pulled away, and stood. “I must go speak with my grandmother now, but I'm sure we will see each other again soon.”

Before Margaery departed, Daenerys stopped her with an urgent question. “You're not going to tell anyone what I told you, are you?”

“Cross my heart, Daenerys. I told you, you can trust me.” And with that, Margaery was bouncing out into the corridor, her honey hair swaying back and forth behind her. 

Alone now, Daenerys rid herself of her gown and slippers like they had ignited in flames, then she crawled beneath her bed covers. She inhaled a deep breath, imagining Jon's scent. She shut her eyes, imagining Jon's appearance behind her eyelids. She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth, imagining the feel of Jon's lips against her skin. She slid her hand between her thighs, imagining the callouses on Jon's fingers. She touched her clitoris and let out a squeak of pleasure. 

Jon's voice echoed in her ear. “Do you think of me when you touch yourself?”

“Yes,” Daenerys breathed into the air as the pad of her two fingers rubbed circles against her clit. She rubbed and rubbed until her body shook, her muscles tensed, and she was moaning, “Yes, Jon. Yes,” into her pillow.

* * * * *

That evening, the Tyrell's Maester was sent into Daenerys's chamber and performed an examination on her. “It's to make sure you are able to bear children, Princess,” the Maester had told her, and Daenerys was eager herself to verify she was capable of giving birth. She always wanted to be a mother. She wondered if Loras would allow her to name one of their sons Jon. 

When the Tyrell's Maester was all finished, Grand Maester Pycell performed his own examination. Daenerys found it peculiar, and she despised the decrepit old man's hands on her body, but she did not protest. When it was all finished, Pycell informed Daenerys of the results of their exams. 

* * * * *

“I'm sorry, your Grace, but my grandson will not be marrying your daughter,” Olenna told Aerys. They as well as Rhaegar, Rhaella and Grand Maester Pycell were all in the King's study, and all wearing such morbid expressions. “The entire purpose of marrying Loras off is to produce an heir to Highgarden.”

“And Daenerys is perfectly capable of producing an heir, as proven by the examination you insisted upon,” Aerys retorted. 

Olenna laughed at the absurdity of the response. “You expect me to marry Loras off to a girl who is carrying a bastard in her belly? An heir means a Tyrell born of Tyrell seed, not the seed of an illegitimate Stark boy.”

Behind her husband, Rhaella silently cried into her palm. 

Dismissively, Aerys replied, “Daenerys will be perfectly capable of producing a Tyrell heir once her womb is free of the bastard.”

Olenna heaved a sigh. “And I suppose you expect me to allow Daenerys to have this child at Highgarden.”

“Of course not,” answer Aerys. “She will have the child here. Then, she will go to Highgarden, marry Loras, and produce him an heir.”

Olenna looked from Aerys to his weeping wife, then back to Aerys. “What will happen with the child?”

“We will take care of the bastard here. It is a Targaryen after all.”

Olenna knew Aerys did not mean it the way the words sounded in the air, but what was she to do? The Princess's illegitimate child was none of her concern, and perhaps it would be a kindness to the bastard, to snuff it out before it realizes how cruel this world could be. 

Once Olenna had left the study, Rhaella fell into the arms of her son and sobbed against his shoulder. 

“Father,” Rhaegar said. “It doesn't have to be this way. Give the child to the Starks. Ned already raised one bastard--”

“And look at how his child rearing has chipped away at our family,” grumbled Aerys. “This child is an abomination born of treachery and dishonor, and from the seed of a bastard no less. It will die, and that is the end of it.”

* * * * *

Jon arrived at Castle Black having forgotten how biting the chill was so far North. It rarely ever got this cold at Winterfell in the Summer. Each breath in was glass inside his lungs. And then he met his new “brothers.” The ones who weren't thieves, rapers and troubled orphans were discarded bastards like Jon. No one spoke of what charges had them brought to the Wall, but everyone heard about the bastard who fucked the King's daughter. The worst part wasn't even being called “raper” as he walked through the yard. The worst part was how his brothers would make gleeful attempts to goad details about the supposed rape out of him, as if they were envious that Jon had taken the Princess against her will and not them. He could say he loved her until his voice went out, but it didn't matter to them. Daenerys was a fantasy object to them, being used and abused in their minds as they drifted off to sleep with their little pricks in their hands. Jon fantasized about pressing a pillow over their faces until they suffocated. 

But, he was a man of the Night's Watch now. He did his training. He took his oaths underneath the weirwood a mile North of the Wall, and now, these loathsome outcasts were his family. 

“What was it like being inside a Targaryen?” one scraggly looking boy asked one day during supper. “I heard their blood is made of fire.”

“Well, I don't think she bled on me, so I don't know,” Jon grumbled between bites of stew. 

A big lumbering fool beside him cooed him mockingly. “Aw, you musta been real gentle with the little Princess then.”

“Have you ever even been with a woman?” Jon asked in an irritated snap, glaring at the boy. 

“Of course I 'ave!” replied the boy defensively, a sure sign that he hadn't. 

“Here's a lesson. If the girl is bleeding, you're doing it wrong.” Jon recalled the faint smears of blood he had found on his bed sheet after the first time he entered Daenerys, like verification from the Gods that Jon had been the man to break down the door to her womanhood. But, Jon figured these men didn't need to know about that. It would only add fuel to their lewd fantasies. 

“What're you talkin' about?” asked one of the newest arrivals, a scrawny kid named Pip who claimed he was arrested stealing cheese for his baby sister. Jon was almost positive it was a lie. 

The fool answered. “Talkin' about the Princess.”

Pip sat down with his bowl of stew and chuckled. “Ah, ya mean the King's daughter? The one who screwed a bastard and got herself pregnant?”

“What?!” the brothers at the table all asked in unison, having not heard that part of the gossip. 

The word struck Jon like a horse hoof to the chest, eyes widening, stomach suddenly growing ill. 

“Oh, y'all haven't heard?” Pip said with a comical grin. “It's all anyone can talk about in King's Landing. The King's got his daughter locked up in the Red Keep on account she's carrying that bastard's kid. Ya know, the one she was fuckin' behind the King's back. Heard they cut off the poor fellow's head for it.”

“They didn't,” Jon stated before leaning forward and snatching Pip by the collar. “Who told you she was pregnant?” 

“I don't know,” Pip squeaked. “Like I said, everyone's talkin' about it. I mean, why else would the King postpone her weddin' to that fancy Lord and shut her up behind lock and key? I heard she's got a dozen guards standin' outside her door all day and all night.”

Jon's chest heaved, heart thudding like rapid punches inside his chest. He slowly released Pip and sat back down. The table was completely silent. Staring at the edge of the table, Jon did the math in his head based on what he knew of women's bodily functions. Nine moons gestation. Jon left for the wall four moons ago. He and Daenerys had made love on the trade ship less than five moons ago, and in his chamber at the Red Keep less than six moons ago. 

“What's the matter?” Pip asked, but no one dared respond until after Jon had dashed out of the dining hall in search of Maester Aemon. 

Without fear of reprimand, Jon hastily ascended the stairway outside Castle Black to the Maester's Tower. Maester Aemon, a blind and fragile man of one-hundred years but still quick witted enough to act as Lord Commander's most valued adviser, sat among his shelves of books, his young steward reading messages from the scrolls of ravens who arrived that day. 

“Maester Aemon,” Jon interrupted, out of breath. He had never spoken directly to the Maester before, rather kept his distance intentionally in case the old man believed the charges against him to be true. “Could I speak with you? It's Jon--”

“Jon Snow,” Aemon said, nose titled up like he could smell the fear sweating from Jon's body. He bid his steward leave, then offered Jon a seat. “Bastard son of Lord Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North.” 

“Yes.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I've heard a rumor.”

“Rumors concerning the outside world should be of no concern to a man of the Nights Watch.”

“Please,” Jon begged, putting his hand over Aemon's withered one. “Perhaps you think me a monster, but I swear to you, I never hurt her. I would never hurt her. The only thing keeping me sane in this damned place is knowing that she is safe and happy. But if she is not. . .”

“If she is not, that is of no concern to you,” replied Aemon. 

“So you do not care? I know you're a Targaryen. She is your family.”

Aemon seemed to ponder Jon's words. 

“At least tell if the rumor is true,” Jon pleaded. “Is she with child?”

Aemon did not respond, seeming still to ponder. 

“Either you tell me, or I'll beat the answer out of the boy who reads your messages.”

“You would strike a child?”

Jon heaved a defeated sigh. “Please, Maester. I need to know if I'm to be a father.”

Finally, the old man spoke a resolute answer. “You will not.”

Jon's body numbed at the response and his gaze turned down. 

Sensing the shift in the young man's demeanor, Aemon asked, “You are relieved?” 

“I don't know,” Jon answered in a low breath. “The thought of having a child with Daenerys is. . . indescribable. But, like this. . . with me so far away and unable to be with her and take care of her and the babe. . . I don't think I could bare it. And her not being pregnant. . . that is a good thing for her. She can marry Ser Loras and live peacefully in Highgarden. I don't want her to suffer any longer because I had to come into her life and stir it all up.”

“Jon.” It was Aemon's turn to rest his palm upon Jon's. “You will not be a father, but Daenerys does carry your bastard.”

* * * * *

Daenerys sat upon the window bench, bathed in afternoon glow, plucking grapes into her mouth one by one as her mother ran a brush through her hair. She had one hand rested upon her swollen belly, feeling her little babe wiggle in her womb. Her eyes looked outward at the cityscape. She would not miss King's Landing while in Highgarden, she decided. The rolling fields of the Reach would be better for her child than the fog of fecal odor that plagued the capital. Even from up in her tower, Daenerys could smell the street waste. 

And as soon as she got to Highgarden, she would write to Jon and tell him of the surprise. Men of the Nights Watch are bound not to father children, but Jon's seed quickened in her womb long before Jon took his vows. 

“I was thinking that if it's a boy, I'll call him Jon, after his father,” Daenerys said. “Do you think Loras would mind that? He says he won't be jealous of my love for Jon, but perhaps he is just being sweet.”

Rhaella took in a slow breath. Being around her daughter grew more difficult the more her belly expanded, and the more her motherly instincts grew. No one had told Daenerys of the babe's death sentence. Another innocent person punished by the King's orders. It seemed everyone in the castle knew that Daenerys would not be leaving King's Landing, nor her very bed chambers, with a child in her arms, except for Daenerys. Everything was planned already. Pycell would bring the babe out of the birthing room as soon as it draws it's first breath, and the Hound would quickly pierce a slim dagger through the center of it's chest. Before Daenerys would have time to ask where the child was, it would be dead. 

“I don't know, Dany,” said Rhaella, swallowing her tears. 

“I can't decide what I shall call it if it is a girl. Do you have any ideas?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, if I was ever to have a sister, what would you have called her?”

Rhaella nicked a tangle and quickly apologized. “I don't know. Perhaps I would have called her after my mother. Shaera.”

“Shaera. Shaera. Shaera.” Daenerys played with the name. “I do like it. Shaera Snow.”

“She would be Shaera Waters. A bastard of the Crownlands.”

“No. I would want our baby to have Jon's name,” Daenerys said. “Or, do you think Loras would want him or her to be a Tyrell? I suppose it might be difficult for him to explain why his wife has one child and he has none.”

“Let's not think about these things right now. There is time for all that later.”

“You always say that, mother, but Grand Maester Pycell says I'll be ready to give birth in just three moons time.”

Out in the corridor, Margaery smiled at the guards and showed them she had no tools at which to assist Daenerys in escaping from her room. All she had was a tray of tea in small cups, two little pots of sugar and milk, and two stirring spoons. She pushed the chamber door open and went to relieve Rhaella of her post.

"I thought we could have some tea before I go, Daenerys," Margaery said with a soft smile. She was heading back to Highgarden for her own matchmaking ceremony, and after hearing about Jon's skills, Margaery was hoping Robb Stark might present himself and show her what all young Lords from the North are capable of. But, though sworn to stay out of another family's affairs, Margaery could not part from the Princess without telling her the truth.

"How sweet of you," Rhaella said. "I'll give you girls some alone time." She stood and left the chamber not a moment too soon, for a tear streamed down her cheek as soon as she was on the other side of the chamber door.

Margaery sat the tray of tea down upon the table, but made no move to pick up a cup. She did not want the Princess holding anything that could be weaponized when Margaery made her confession.

"Sweet Princess." Margaery sat before her soon-to-be-sister. "I've grown so fond of you during my stay. I know my brother has as well. I think you two will truly be happy together. Sometimes the best partnerships are never romantic."

Maybe so, Daenerys thought, but her partnership with Jon was romantic, and nothing else would ever compare.

The babe kicked against the walls of Daenerys's womb, and she jumped. Smiling, she took Margaery's hand and rested it upon her belly. "Do you feel it?" she asked.

Margaery gaped. "Gods, what a strong little one."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Anything."

"How were you able to lie with so many men and not fall pregnant?"

"Oh, well I tend not to allow the men I'm with to finish inside me," answered Margaery easily.

"Oh. . ." Daenerys lowered her voice. "What do they do with it instead?"

Margaery laughed, adoring Daenerys's naivety. "Most men like to finish on a woman. Belly, breasts, face--"

"Face?!"

Margaery laughed harder and Daenerys joined in. "Some men have strange preferences," Margaery said. "I was once with a fourth-born Lord who insisted upon finishing over my feet, and then rubbing his seed into my flesh like it was heeling cream."

Daenerys's face contorted in both disgust and amusement. Gods. . . Had Jon every requested such an odd activity, Daenerys wasn't sure what she would have done. Thankfully, everything Jon ever wanted, Daenerys wanted, too.

"When you're in Highgarden," Margaery leaned in close, "I'll point out to you the laborers with the most talents at pleasing women, and who are discrete about it. Just because you're married to my brother doesn't mean you can't enjoy yourself in that way. He'd understand completely. I'm sure Lord Renly will be making regular visits to satiate their own needs. But, dear Princess, I must teach you how to enjoy yourself without creating any more little bastards."

Daenerys frowned, holding her round belly protectively. "I don't want to lie with anyone else but Jon," she insisted.

Margaery pouted. "Of course not. I apologize. But you will have to lie with Loras, if only to produce heirs. The process is all the same except with less foreplay and less enjoyment."

Daenerys sucked in a breath. She knew well what she would have to do with Loras once her body was healed from birthing and they were man and wife. It made her miserable to think of another man taking Jon's place in that way, but what could she do? Marrying Loras was the only way to escape King's Landing and offer a suitable home for her child where they both would not live in fear of the King or taking illness from the scummy city. Sadly, Daenerys vowed, "I will do my duties as a wife. It's a small price to pay for the safety of our child. I only hope Jon understands."

A silence overtook the young women for a short while, during which Margaery struggled to gain the courage that usually came so naturally to her. Her heart broke for the young Princess, so delicate and unknowing of the horrid truth. "Daenerys," she took the Princess's hands into her own. "I have a confession to make."

"A confession?"

"Yes." Margaery swallowed. "When we first met, my grandmother and I suspected you may have been with child. We easily recognized the signs. I was to speak with you and find out if you ever took Jon's seed into your womb. When you told me you had twice done so, I told my grandmother immediately, and the Maesters were sent in to verify our suspicions--"

"Thank you," Daenerys said with a small smile, giving the Lady's hands a gentle squeeze. "If you and your grandmother had not found out, I would not have known, and I would not have begun taking care of myself the way a mother needs to for her child. I wanted to die before I spoke with you and your brother. Now I must go on for the sake of mine and Jon's child."

"Oh, Daenerys." Margaery was near tears. She took the Princess into her arms and held her tight. Clinging to the girl, Margaery muttered shaky words to her ear. "I'm so sorry. No one wants to tell you, but I cannot leave you here so ignorant of what is to come. Sweet Princess, my grandmother and the King were never going to allow you to raise a bastard at Highgarden."

"What?" Daenerys arms went limp around the Lady.

"As soon as the babe leaves your womb, it will be killed. The guards, Pycell, and the maids have already been instructed. They are not even to let you hold it before they sweep it away, never to be seen again." Margaery was crying now into the Princess's silken silver hair.

Daenerys went numb in the moments before rage took hold of her. She pried the Lady from her and pushed her away, not wanting her within arms reach of her ever again.

"Daenerys, forgive me. I only wanted to do my duty as a Tyrell." Margaery tried to take Daenerys's hands once more, but Daenerys pulled them swiftly from the Lady's grasp, instead swinging it forcefully against Margaery cheek in a bitter slap. Perhaps the Princess was not so delicate after all.

"Get out," Daenerys demanded, first low and even, then in a fitful scream. "Get out! Get out! I don't want you anywhere near me!"

Margaery hurried to the chamber door, swung it open and ran away in a fit of tears.

Having heard the tantrum, the guards entered the chamber and lurched toward Daenerys. She backed up into a corner of her chamber and grabbed a brass candle holder from the wall, thrusting it out in front of her like it were a sword. "Don't come any closer to me!" she commanded, voice cracking with fear.

"Put it down, Princess," spoke the Hound as calm as he would ask a tavern wench for a pitcher of ale.

"I won't let you take my baby!" she shouted. She swung the candle holder at the lumbering man, but it only bounced right off his golden armor.

The Hound snatched the candle holder from Daenerys's hand like ripping a toy from a child's grasp. Daenerys's first instinct was to run, but she was surrounded, three other Gold Cloaks made a half circle behind the Hound. Her second instinct was to huddle on the floor and tuck her knees as close to her chest as she could to protect the baby in her belly. The Hound stooped and hissed a threat into Daenerys's ear with rancid breath. "I could always cut the bastard out of you now and save everyone the time and trouble. Your lucky your King father still places value on your used up twat or he wouldn't insist on me waiting til the bastard is out of you before killing it."

"I will kill you," Daenerys seethed, "before I let you near my baby."

"That's it, little Princess. You're going to need that strength."

One of the guards hurried off to inform the King that Daenerys was now aware of his plans to slaughter the babe fresh out of the womb. The Hound did not leave Daenerys's side until the guard returned, armed with additional security and a basket filled with restraints from the dungeons.

"No! No, no, no!" Daenerys screamed as the Hound scooped her up and threw her on her bed. He and the other guards held down her limbs with so much pressure she thought her bones would snap. They tied iron chains around the headboard and footboard, then fastened Daenerys's ankles and wrists with heavy shackles. They bound her so severely she could hardly lift her hands off the mattress, nor bend her knees more than an inch. She felt so utterly exposed, unable to give even the smallest bit of protection to her rounded belly. She cried out so sharply her throat stung.

The guards backed away and out of the chamber to regain their post. All except the Hound. He remained on Daenerys's side of the closed chamber door and plopped down in a chair beside it, eyes trained on the Princess.

"Scream all you want, little Princess," he said with a chuckle in his tone. "No one who hears you will give a damn."

But that was not true at all. It was only that those who heard and gave a damn, felt utterly incapable of helping. Even the Queen herself felt completely powerless. She could hear Daenerys's wails from the veranda at tea time, and from the dining room at supper. She could hear Daenerys scream for her – “Mother! Mother!” – while she walked through the garden. Only once since the chains were used did Rhaella enter her daughter's chambers. 

She entered late in the evening. No one had come to close the shutters, filling the room with a cold draft. No one had bothered to cover up her little Princess either. Daenerys lay in her shift, still strung up in an “X.” It reminded Rhaella of the Bolton house sigil: the flayed man. She could hear the chatter of Daenerys's teeth from the doorway. Immediately, Rhaella turned to the Hound and demanded to know why her daughter hadn't been properly taken care of. 

“The Princess managed to grab hold of a chamber maid this morning while she changed the linens and the Princess nearly strangled her to death. The King demanded no one entry into the chambers.”

“Since when is the quality of life of a little chamber maid more important than that of the Princess?” seethed Rhaella up at the ugly man. 

“Ask your husband, your Grace.”

Rhaella shut herself inside and went straight to the windows, closing the shutters and drawing the thick curtains to stave off the cold. She lit a candle and with it ignited the lanterns on either side of the bed. At once she thought Daenerys was sleeping, but in the amber glow Rhaella saw her daughter's eyes were wide open, trained at the ceiling. Her lips were chapped and blue, and there was a rash on her wrists and ankles where the cuffs chaffed her delicate skin. Rhaella pulled a few silk sashes from Daenerys's wardrobe and one by one stuffed the fabric within the shackles to protect skin from iron. 

Red-rimmed amethysts followed the Queens every move. A tear slid down the side of Daenerys's face. “Why are you doing this to me?” she asked in a hoarse whisper. 

Rhaella wished to protest, to tell her daughter this cruelty was not of her doing. But, wasn't it? Wasn't there something, anything, Rhaella could do to stop all of this? She was the mother after all, and Daenerys the daughter. Daughters were meant to be careless and self-interested. Mothers were meant to protect them and to hold their hands through the consequences of their mistakes. And yet, Rhaella had refused to even see her daughter for a full week, too nauseated by the thought of her daughter in chains to bare witness to the sight. Now that she was here, Rhaella cursed herself for not coming sooner. 

“When did you eat last?” Rhaella asked. What a foolish question. No one had been in the room since morning. Rhaella took a pear and cutting knife from the table and took them to Daenerys's bedside. She sliced the pear atop the nightstand and touched a sliver to Daenerys's lips. 

The Princess resisted for a moment, but quickly relented. Her child needed nutrients more than Daenerys needed to be defiant. She parted her lips and allowed her mother to glide the sliver into her mouth. She chewed slowly, then swallowed. 

“I hate you,” Daenerys spoke, quiet but earnest. 

“Daenerys--”

“I hate you,” she repeated, “and if I could, I would wrap these chains about your throat and kill you. I would kill every last person in this castle to save my baby.”

Rhaella rested her hand atop Daenerys's forehead, worried she may be suffering delirium from a fever. But her skin was cold to the touch. Her eyes trailed down to Daenerys's neck, where a thin silver chain glinted. Rhaella pinched the chain between two fingers. 

“Don't touch it,” Daenerys commanded, flinching as Rhaella dipped her hand into her shift and pulled out the pendant Jon had gifted her. Not since they awoke together aboard that ship did she not have the circle of carved silver tucked between her breasts. 

Rhaella expelled a sigh. So much suffering, all because she brought a bastard into her daughter's life. She rested the pendant back down upon Daenerys's chest, then pulled a thick quilt over her shivering body, wrapping her up tight. 

“Did I ever tell you about the time after I had your brother Rhaegar and before I had your brother Viserys? Three times I awoke in the middle of the night soaked in blood. Two times I gave birth after nine moons to children whose lungs refused to take breaths.”

“I don't care,” Daenerys muttered. 

“What I mean to say is that one day, when you are busy raising and loving yours and Loras's legitimate children, the pain of this loss will lessen, and you will be grateful for the good fortune you have.”

Daenerys laughed contemptuously. “You're children were not ripped from your breast and slaughtered under a dog's knife at the demand of your own family.”

“Dany, please understand that I--”

“Leave,” Daenerys spat. “Leave me alone so that at least I can suffer without having to look in the eyes of the woman who is betraying me.”

The woman. No longer “Mother.” Rhaella had waited too long. She should have come running when Daenerys had been crying out for her. She tried to press a kiss to Daenerys's forehead, but she twisted her head away from the gesture in pure disgust.

“I love you,” Rhaella said softly, then stood before her tears could fall. As she walked to the door, however, Daenerys's voice chimed out in a tone more suited for a young Princess. 

“Mother,” she whined, “Will you at least tell the guards to loosen my chains a bit. My arms are so cold.”

Rhaella turned back to her daughter, and the softness to her face made her heart sing. Her daughter was still in there somewhere, trapped behind a vengeful rage. She did go tell the guards to loosen Daenerys's chains enough that she could tuck her arms to her chest and sleep comfortably, maybe even rest on her side, a much more manageable position for a woman so far along in pregnancy. 

Once Daenerys's chains were adjusted and she was left alone in her room again, she was indeed able to turn onto her side and give her back much needed relief. But that was only a perk to the real victory made. With more movement of her arms, Daenerys was just barely able to reach her nightstand, to where her Queen mother had carelessly left the small cutting knife. Daenerys pulled the knife underneath her quilt and began devising her plan.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Heavy angst ahead, including depictions of self-inflicted bodily harm.

Jon only made it as far as Moles Town before he was run down by a group of Targaryen soldiers. He thought they would execute him on behalf of the King on desertion charges – finally putting him out of his misery – but they did not. Their commander forbade it. 

“Do you know that I have been charged by the King to execute you,” Ser Barristan asked as if Jon should already know the answer. 

“Why haven't you?” Jon asked. They sat around a fire among the Northern woods. Jon's wrists were bound with rope behind his back and fastened to a sturdy tree in case he decided to run off. 

“You confessed,” explained Ser Barristan, “and then you were sentenced. It would be dishonorable to undermine an official sentencing, and to claim the life of a man of the Nights Watch when the Wall is already so undermanned.” 

Jon squinted in confusion at the man. “But is it not also dishonorable to disobey an order from the King?”

“Not if the order is dishonorable.”

Ser Barristan peeled the skinned rabbit from the fire and twisted it in the cool air to bring down the temperature. “I'll escort you back to Castle Black in the morning, say I found you at one of the brothels. Once the Princess is married and in Highgarden, I'll ride back to King's Landing and say you died falling off the Wall, or something equally humiliating that might explain why I did not transport your head back with me.”

“Do you have any idea what's happening in King's Landing?”

“I've heard rumors.”

“And you don't care?”

Ser Barristan handed off the cooked rabbit to one of his soldiers. “There's nothing I can do about it. And there is certainly nothing you can do about it.”

“You just said, if the order is dishonorable, it shouldn't be followed. Yet, the Red Keep is full of people who will follow any order, no matter how dishonorable. You shouldn't be here spying on me. You should be in King's Landing, watching over Daenerys.”

Ser Barristan sized the boy up, finding it odd that someone who loathes the knight as much as Jon would wish him to look after the Princess for him. “The Princess is stronger than she looks. She'll make it through.”

“And what about our child?!” Jon fumed. 

“My loyalty is to the Targaryen family, not to every bastard born from their line.”

Jon shook his head with disdain. “If you truly cared for Daenerys, you would care for her child as well.” His back slumped, defeated and utterly heartbroken. “What am I to do?” he asked helplessly. “A man protects his family, but I cannot.”

Ser Barristan agreed. “No. You cannot.” 

* * * * *

Elia awoke to the rumble of guards stampeding down the corridor. She twisted around to see Rhaegar was already missing from their bed. Her first thought was a coop. She jumped out of her bed, hastily threw on the first dress she pulled from her wardrobe, then ran from her chambers on bare feet to find her children. Both were safe in their rooms, but also startled by the commotion. She ordered them to stay put until she could find Rhaegar and see what was going on. 

The sound of conflict carried Elia all the way up the stairs of the East Tower before she realized she was headed toward the roof directly above Daenerys's bed chambers. Her heart sank to her feet, pinching like a knife through her chest with every step she took. She noticed a droplet trail of fresh blood on the stones. She pushed open the door to the roof to find a dozen guards swarmed around the edge. 

Gods. . . Please, let her not have. . .

Elia pushed through the guards and let out a gasp.

Blood dribbled from a deep wound in Daenerys's forearm. Her wrists and ankles were stained in the dark crimson from where the Princess had oiled her skin enough to squeeze her nimble limbs free from her iron shackles. She stood atop the short wall separating the roof from the open air. One hand steadied herself against a pillar while the other brandished a little cutting knife, blade the size of her wound. 

“Daenerys!” Elia screamed on the inside, but it was Rhaella who shouted the name aloud. 

The Queen stood like she had forgotten how to walk, arms out in the direction of her daughter as if she would be able to catch her if she fell. Rhaegar was beside his mother, and Elia ran to his side, grabbing for a hand and holding it tight. 

“Stop this,” Elia begged Rhaegar. 

His head snapped to her, a coldness in his eye. “What would you have me do?” It was rhetorical question, so rather than try to answer it, Elia lurched back and away from her husband. 

“I want to speak to Father!” Daenerys demanded, body quaking from pain, anger, fear and adrenaline. Her toes curled against the rough surface of the narrow wall she stood upon. Behind her, was a drop so steep she would hit the ground in a splatter. She had never been afraid of heights, though. “Bring Father here, or I swear I will jump!”

“Please, Daenerys!” Rhaella cried, dropping to her knees. No good would come of Aerys seeing his daughter like this. He would call her weak and troubled in the mind. He would toss her away like she was one of his bastards. 

“Get Father!” she screamed. 

Rhaegar turned to the Hound and gave a nod, approving his sister's demands. He turned then to where his wife stood, arms wrapped around herself and tears streaming down her face. Rhaegar had never seen the Dornish Princess so vulnerable. It pained him so, but he knew not how to make her feel better. Perhaps if he was King he could do something, but until his father passed, Rhaegar was a mere Prince, and was obligated to defer to Aerys. 

“Stop crying, Mother,” Daenerys spoke coldly to the Queen. “If I should fall, you won't have to worry about your petulant whore of a daughter or her bastard spawn any longer.”

She was lightheaded from blood loss, but her babe still stirred within her womb, holding on strong just as Daenerys would. Indeed, her plan of escape did not go quite as planned. Had she the courage to pierce the knife through her flesh sooner in the night, Daenerys would have had more time to slick her shackles and scrape her hands and feet free of them. She would have had more time while the incompetent night guards bickered carelessly outside her chamber door and slip out undetected. She would have had more time to make it through the Red Keep and out of the castle. But alas, she only made it to the stairwell before the guards spotted her, and rather than lie down and surrender, Daenerys pivoted to a new plan, one born of desperation. It was her last chance. Aerys had not looked at her since before the trial. If her father could only see how much she was suffering, how much pain his orders were causing, perhaps he would find a tenderness in his heart to alter coarse on behalf of his only daughter. 

When Aerys arrived to the roof, out of breath from treking up so many steps, he shocked his family in the way he spoke to his daughter. 

“Dany,” Aerys said, moving through the crowd and toward his daughter, arm outstretched toward her. “Give me the knife, Dany, and I'll help you down. Everything will be alright.” He spoke as if his little girl simply needed her father to get her down from a high place so that she would not have to be afraid anymore. 

“Father,” whimper Daenerys, her wall of resilience faltering with the unusually soothing quality of his voice, a quality that only lived in her vaguest of childhood memories. “I'm sorry I disobeyed you. I'm sorry I ran away. I do love you, and I do want to be a good daughter. I want to make you proud of me.”

“Come down now, Dany,” Aerys said, reaching slowly for her hand. “We'll straighten everything out, but you're bleeding, dear child.”

“You chained me up.”

“You won't have to be chained up any longer.”

Her eyes watered. “Do you promise?”

Aerys promised, and he captured hold of the knife and took it into his own hand, passing it behind him to Rhaegar. He took Daenerys's hand next and guided her down from the wall. She immediately fell to her knees at her father's feet. 

“Please, Father,” she quietly cried. “I will be a good daughter. I will marry Loras, and I will be a good wife to him. I will give him a dozen heirs, and I will raise them all to be good and loyal Lords and Ladies, and I will always urge my husband to act in the best interest of the Crown. I promise, Father. I will do anything you ask of me for as long as I shall live.” She tilted her head up to blink her glossy eyes up at the King. “But please, Father. Please, do not take my baby. Do not kill your grandchild.”

The King extended his hand to caress his daughter's pale face. “Oh, my sweet daughter. That abomination growing strength inside your womb is no grandchild of mine. Once it is plucked and snuffed from this world, we can all begin anew. And I expect, then, you will never again disobey your King.”

Aerys removed himself from Daenerys and turned to the Hound. “Take her down to the dungeons where she can't get hold of sharp objects, and send Pycell down to mend that gash. Can't marry her off to that cocksucking Tyrell boy if she's dead.” 

“Aerys, you can't,” Rhaella said, but her husband paid her words no mind. He left the roof a moment later, considering this matter handled. 

Daenerys sobbed silently against the gravel. No one dared touch her, like they all feared catching sickness. Indeed, Daenerys was sick, but it was an illness that could only be cured with a touch of humanity, and not a soul seemed capable of providing a dose. Rhaella could not move, paralyzed with the realization that her husband no longer saw their own daughter as a living breathing person, but as another cockroach he could step on whenever he pleased. Rhaegar went to his wife rather than to his sister. In truth, he hardly knew Daenerys. She had been born four years after he and Elia were married and living on Dragonstone, only coming back to King's Landing for special occasions. He couldn't understand why Elia was so heartbroken over a sister she was not even related to by blood. But Elia was the only one who's first instinct was to take Daenerys into her arms and dash her away someplace where bad people could not harm her. But by the time she squirmed free from her husbands firm embrace, the Hound was already scooping the defeated Princess up into his arms and carrying her to the stairs. 

* * * * *

Jon returned from a three week scouting mission beyond the Wall to news that he had received a raven from Essos. Essos? Who did Jon know in Essos? The only thing that popped into his head as he ascended the stairs to the Maester's Tower was that Pentos was in Essos. Had Daenerys made it there after all? He would go to her, Jon decided. He would find a smuggler at White Harbor to transport him. Screw his vows to the Nights Watch. 

“I received a scroll?” Jon asked Maester Aemon, sweating with optimism.

“Have a seat,” Maester Aemon said, patting the space on the bench beside him. “It's good news.” 

As Jon sat, Aemon instructed his young steward to fetch the scroll for Jon. The boy handed it to Aemon, Aemon dismissed the boy, then handed the scroll to Jon. He tore into it quickly. 

_Dear brother,_

Jon's eyes squinted. It was a scroll from Robb?

_It has taken me some time to muster up the courage to write to you. I cannot imagine what you must be suffering through. But I must inform you of the changes in my own life, so that you do not hear about what has happened second hand. I have married a Volantene Lady called Talisa Maegyr, now Talisa Stark. We are in Volantis now, and I expect we will stay here for some time longer. Mother will be so cross with me, but I love my new wife dearly. I hope one day you two will meet. Take care, Jon. Warmer days will come. Robb Stark._

Jon slowly crinkled the scroll in his fist.

“I thought you would be happy for your brother,” Aemon said. 

“I love Robb,” Jon sullenly replied. “He is my best friend – my closest ally. And yet, it is difficult to be happy when he gets to have everything that I want, even in the rare instances that he's not supposed to.”

“Ah, but your brother will never get to be a Ranger with the Nights Watch.” 

Jon scowled at the blind man. “Have you heard anything from King's Landing?”

“What is happening in King's Landing--”

“Is none of my concern. I know,” Jon groaned. “Will you tell me anyway if you've heard anything?”

Indeed, the Maester had hear news from the Capital. Maester Pycell liked to keep him apprised of the goings on. And even in Aemon's hundred years on this world, what his squire read aloud in the most recent scroll shocked Aemon greatly. But, just as Jon could do nothing, neither could a blind old man who needed assistance just to rise from his bed in the morning. “The babe still grows inside it's mother,” Aemon eventually said. 

“Is she alright?”

“She is alive,” Aemon answered. “And in a world so full of misfortune, that should be enough to keep your spirits high.”

* * * * *

For two moons, Daenerys lived every day in her dungeon cell without a moment's reprieve of outdoor life. There was one window in her cell, small and shoved up where the wall met the ceiling, and there were bars in front of it. If Daenerys craned her neck just right, she could see the stars at night, and a cloud or two during daylight. There was nothing in the cell except a sheet stuffed with hay for her to sleep upon, and a wool blanket to swaddle herself in. Most of her days she spent staring at the drips on the wall and singing softly the words to her favorite children's rhymes, and once a day Maester Pycell would come and check on her well being and tend to the puncture wound in her arm. He also checked to see if her baby was still thriving. 

For two moons, the only thing that kept Daenerys sane were her conversations with her unborn babe. She would tell him or her all about Jon. “Your papa,” she would call him. “He's a painter. He painted your mama, and one day maybe he'll paint you as well. He can do one of us both. How would that be?” She would tell him or her all about the home in Pentos she and Jon dreamed up. 

For two moons, Elia would go down to the dungeons each afternoon and read to Daenerys the same books she would read to her children before they grew too old to appreciate their mother's voice. Perhaps under normal circumstances, the stories would be too infantile for a young woman like Daenerys, but reading them aloud was easier than talking about the elephant in the room, and at least the Princess would have company for a short while until Elia would have to return upstairs and make an appearance at supper, where the Targaryen family sat in sullen silence as they ate, stealing glances at the empty place at the table where Daenerys used to grace them all with her sweet smiles and bright eyes. 

But, one afternoon, after two moons of this, Elia did not get three sentences into the story of the Dance of Dragons before Daenerys stopped her. In fact, it was the first time since before the incident on the roof that Daenerys spoke directly to Elia.

“Elia,” she said, desperation in her eyes. “Don't tell Father.”

The Princess Elia put down her book and looked over her sister-by-law. Having birthed two children herself, Elia knew what the water pooling at Daenerys's bare feet meant. 

* * * * *

“I'm leaving,” Elia told her husband as soon as he found her in their chambers. She was throwing dresses and slippers haphazardly into a trunk like she was late for a ship. “I'm taking the children back to Dragonstone.”

“You're talking mad, Elia,” Rhaegar said, grabbing his wife by the shoulders. 

The Princess shoved her husband away and resumed her task. “You're lucky I am not taking them back South. I will not be a party to this. This is not how things are handled in Dorne. What he is doing to your sister is despicable.” 

“You are not a party to it,” Rhaegar insisted. “We are not condoning it. There is nothing we can do about it.”

She scoffed an incredulous laugh. Never had she behaved this way toward her husband. Elia Martell was raised to be a good, dutiful wife, but she was also raised to have a brain and courage. “There is nothing _I_ can do about it. There is plenty you can do.”

“What would you have me do?! I am not King!” Rhaegar grabbed her once more. “I will not let you leave. Your place is by my side.”

“Let go of me!” Elia demanded, shoving his again and taking a swipe at his face. 

When Rhaegar raised a hand above them, Elia tried not to flinch, but she did. His hand steadied and slowly lowered, but his scowl remained. “You're just going to abandon her then?”

Elia's head shook with contempt. “I am not the one who is abandoning her.”

* * * * *

Rhaella stood in the corridor of the dungeons, watching from the shadows as Daenerys groaned out in pain through a clenched jaw. She was on her knees upon the hay mattress, one hand clutching her nine moons swollen belly and the other squeezing mercilessly the hand of the midwife. Aerys would not even permit Daenerys out of her cell for the delivery. Rhaella's little Princess was giving birth to a condemned bastard in the dungeon cell beneath their home. How did they get here? Why did it have to come to this? Daenerys may never forgive her Queen mother for all she had allowed to happen, but Rhaella was beginning to believe there may be _something_ she could do to stop this madness from going any further. But everything would have to fall into place just so, and she would not be able to conceive of such a plan alone. 

“How long?” she asked Grand Maester Pycell. 

“Could take all night,” the old man replied. “No sign of breach as of yet, but this is her first. Could take into tomorrow, though I'm not certain the Princess will be strong enough to see it through.”

“She will be,” Rhaella insisted softly. “Make sure she is.”

Pycell gave a small bow, and the Queen departed, leaving her daughter in that place, in that state, without uttering a single word to her. She found the stairs and made her way to her eldest son's chambers. She found Prince Rhaegar in his study, sat by the fire, drinking heartily from a goblet of wine. 

Eyes glued to the flames, Rhaegar asked, “Is it done yet?”

Rhaella went to her son and pried the goblet from his hand, tossing the contents into the flames. They spurted and danced for a few moments, casting a quick burst of heat around them. “How can you be so cruel?” she asked her son. 

He tossed up his hands. “Why does everyone think this is my fault? What part of this was my idea, mother? You're his _wife._ You go try and sway his mind.”

Rhaella did not respond, staring instead into the flames and letting it conjure up her courage to finally do what was right, even if it meant sacrificing one part of her family for another. 

“I'm sorry, mother.” Rhaegar heaved a sigh. 

“What would you do?” asked Rhaella suddenly. 

“Do?”

“If you were King.” Rhaella turned to her son. “If you were King right now, what would you do?”

“I don't know. . . I would. . .” Rhaegar thought a moment. “I wouldn't order the babe killed, that is for sure. But, Daenerys cannot take a bastard to Highgarden. Lady Olenna would never allow it. We could send it to an orphanage, but Daenerys would never agree to that. She'd do something foolish to try and stop us.”

“She loves that child that same way I loved you when you were still squirming in my womb,” Rhaella said, lifting a small, sad smile. “The babe would have to stay with Daenerys. It's the only way.”

Rhaegar pondered, wishing he still had his wine. “I suppose if we found a Lord who was willing to marry a woman and take ownership of the child as well. . . Or, we would simply not marry her off at all. Let her stay here for the rest of her life, unwed.”

Rhaella shook her head. “We have too many bridges to repair to not take advantage of Daenerys's ability to marry and bare sons.”

“The North has always despised us, if only in secret,” Rhaegar mused. “We could marry her to the Bolton boy. The newly legitimized one.”

Rhaella shook her head again. “Ramsay is menacing boy and, either way, the Boltons hold little power in the North.”

“Well, the Starks hold the most power in the North, but they despise us more than any of the Northern houses, especially after what Father has done to insult their Warden.”

“We could make things right,” Rhaella suggested. 

Rhaegar squinted his eyes curiously at his mother. “Wed her to Robb Stark? I heard he eloped in one of the Free Cities to a foreign girl. I suppose we could marry her to one of the other Stark boys, but they are hardly of age.”

“You could undo what your father has done.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think, Rhaegar,” said Rhaella. “What is the difference between a bastard and a Lord? Some are treated well, some are not. Some are loved by their fathers, some are not. Some grow up to be good men, and some do not.”

“Mother, Jon Snow is a man of the Nights Watch now. He has taken vows.”

“Vows that can be overruled by a decree from the King.”

“Depending on who you ask.”

“If you ask Jon Snow. . . I'm sure he would agree.”

Rhaegar squinted into the fire, so many thoughts swimming around in his mind. Eventually, he looked up at his mother. “Is Jon Snow older than Robb Stark?”

“I think so. From what I hear, Lord Stark bed Jon's mother before he was wed to Cat.”

A smile stretched upon Rhaegar's face. “If Jon Snow were to be legitimized, and he is older than Robb Stark, that would make him heir to Winterfell. Unless Ned contests it, which he might, or he might not given his current heir ran off to Essos and married a foreigner, Jon would become the next Warden of the North. The next Warden of the North who owes his life and the life of his child to the Crown. And obviously, he wouldn't mind marrying Daenerys and legitimizing their babe.”

“Do you promise?” Rhaella asked. 

Rhaegar tilted his head up to meet her eye. “Promise?”

“Do you promise that is what you would do if you were King?”

“But, I am not King.”

The Queen reached her hand out to stroke the ivory whiskers upon his chin. “I know. Promise me anyway.”

Once Rhaegar promised his mother, she fixed him a new goblet of wine and told him to get some rest. She would be back to see him later. 

* * * * *

Across the country, in the very North, Jon Snow was departing with his fellow rangers on another scouting mission. Castle Black heard rumors of a Wildling raid coming through. Though Jon was far from happy in his new circumstances, he took his responsibilities as a Ranger seriously. His own mother's family had been slaughtered by Wildlings, and his first love – though “love” seemed an inappropriate word for his short lived teen-aged romance after experiencing something so true and undeniable thereafter – would still be living had she not been manipulated into conflict with a hoard of Wildling raiders. 

And should he die beyond the Wall, Jon decided it would not make much of a difference. 

* * * * *

With Elia on a ship back to Dragonstone, Rhaegar had no one to warm his bed; thus, he slept in his study, fully clothed, and warmed instead by the blazing hearth. He wasn't sure how long it had been between drifting off to sleep and being startled awake by his father's dog, but it felt like only a few seconds. 

“The King has taken ill,” barked the Hound, and Rhaegar shot up from his chair. 

He followed the Hound through the Keep and to the King's chambers. His mother and Viserys were already there by Aerys's bedside. He looked on death's doorstep when he was fine just a few hours ago. Though, Rhaegar still was not sure how many hours exactly that was. Had the sun already come up?

“What happened?” he asked in haste. 

Grand Maester Pycell did not look optimistic. He took Rhaegar into the hall to deliver the prognosis. Certain death. “His organs are failing. He has been coughing blood and bile for hours. His tongue is black and he hasn't the capacity to speak nor even open his eyelids.”

Rhaegar took the information in like it was cement being poured down his throat. “How could this have happened?”

“Any number of causes. Food poisoning--”

“We all ate the same food.”

“Your father frequently had additional meals brought up to his chambers.”

“There must be something you can do.”

“Rhaegar,” spoke the Queen. She gave Pycell a small nod, a signal to tend to her husband in his final minutes. When alone with her eldest son in the corridor, Rhaella took his hands into her own. “Do you remember what you promised me?”

Rhaegar could not find the words to speak for many moments. He blinked at his mother as if he might wake himself up again and discover this all a nightmare, but he never did wake up. “Please, Mother. Tell me you did not--”

“Shh. Your father is very old, and his health has not been good for some time. He only hides his ailments for the benefit of his pride. You will be King now, and you will do a much finer job at it than Aerys ever did.”

“Mother--”

“Do you remember what you promised me?” Rhaella asked again with more urgency. 

“Yes.”

“Good. Your sister doesn't have much time. The midwives say she is beginning to crown.”

“I have to. . . I have to think. . . I have to get--”

“You have to save your sister, Rhaegar,” Rhaella urged. “You have to save this family.”

Rhaegar swallowed hard, his heart thudding in his chest so severely it shot pain through his ribcage. He went back into the King's bed chamber and sat at Aerys's side. Taking his father's hand into his, he said, “Father. Father, can you hear me?”

Not a sound escaped the King's throat. There was not a single flutter of an eyelid or a twitch of muscle in his fingers to show Rhaegar that he was still living. 

“He's gone, your Grace,” Pycell informed him gently. 

And as easily as that, Prince Rhaegar was now King of Westeros. But his first thought after the realization set in that he was now King, was of his wife, Elia, now Queen. 

He turned to Pycell, “Send a raven at once to Dragonstone and inform my wife of my father's death. Tell her to come back to King's Landing immediately with the children. Their place is here in the Capital now. And. . . tell her I'm going to fix everything. Those exact words. _I'm going to fix everything._ When that is done, send a raven to all the noble Houses and inform them that Aerys Targaryen is dead, and Rhaegar Targaryen is now King, and that I shall expect letters re-instituting their fealty within the week.”

He turned then to the Hound. “Go to the dungeons and see to it that no one lay a hand on my sister or her child. Once she is able, move her back to her bedchambers.”

“Would you like me to shackle her in her bed chambers, your Grace?” asked the Hound. 

Rhaegar's face soured. “No. Have the chamber maids remove the chains from her bed and fit it with fresh linens before my sister arrives.”

Rhaella smiled at her eldest son. 

“So, this means I get Dragonstone now, right?” asked Viserys suddenly, a question neither the Queen Mother nor the new King had the time or energy to answer. 

* * * * *

By mid-morning, all of Rhaegar's orders had been fulfilled. Elia and the noble houses would receive ravens in short order, informing them of their new King, and Daenerys and child were brought up to her bed chambers. There were still two guards posted outside her door, but only to ensure the Princess did not try and escape before she could be informed of what is to come. 

Rhaella stepped into Daenerys's bed chambers to see her sleeping form rested comfortably atop her feather bed, the quilt Rhaella had made for her years ago draped over her angelic form. For a few long moments, Rhaella simply gazed upon her daughter's sweet face, but her eyes were soon drawn to the bassinet pressed up to the side of the mattress. Daenerys's arm was swept over it, her limp hand resting atop the swaddled belly of a new born babe. 

Rhaella's heart nearly leaped from her chest at the sight. A tiny little thing, fair faced with thin wisps of dark hair atop the head and round lilac eyes blinking up at her. “Hi,” she breathed. “I'm your grandmother.”

The sound caused Daenerys to stir, and a moment later, her own lilacs were blinking open. Rhaella opened her mouth to speak to her daughter, but before any sound came out, Daenerys shot up from her sleeping position and grabbed the babe from the bassinet, clutching it to her chest and turning her back to Rhaella. 

“Go away,” Daenerys demanded, voice trembling with fear. 

Rhaella's heart ached to just wrap her arms around the both of them and never let go, but when she reached her hand out to touch her daughter's hair, she faltered, to wary of startling Daenerys, too guilty for all she had done to harm Daenerys. 

With hope for an answer, Rhaella quietly asked, “Is it a boy or a girl?”

Daenerys did not respond, only shifted on her knees closer to the headboard of her bed so that she may form a tunnel around her son. She trained her eyes on him, studying his face just in case she would never see it again. He had Jon's dark hair and pouted lips, but Daenerys's eyes. Gods, he was a beautiful boy, more beautiful than Daenerys had even imagined possible. If they did try to take him from her arms, Daenerys vowed she would die trying to stop them. 

“Has your brother come to speak with you yet?” Rhaella asked. “Have you been told of your father?”

Daenerys did not respond. 

“Your father is dead, Daenerys.”

The Princess's shoulders stiffened and her eyes finally left her child to ponder what that meant. 

“Rhaegar is King now,” Rhaella continued, finally mustering up the courage to run her palm down Daenerys's tangled hair. “Everything is going to alright now, dear child. No one is going to touch either of you.”

Flinching away from her mother's touch, Daenerys hissed, “You're lying. You're all liars.”

“Oh, Dany. It is the truth. I promise you.”

“I don't believe you. I don't trust you. Leave us be,” Daenerys demanded. 

“Please, Dany.” Rhaella moved to try and see her grandchild, but Daenerys turned again, keeping her back to Rhaella and refusing her even the smallest glance at the bundle in Daenerys's arms. 

“You will never touch him. Never. Not while I am alive,” Daenerys seethed. 

Him. A boy. Rhaella's heart sang, but it was a solemn song. Oh how her arms ached to hold him, but Daenerys had no cause to trust Rhaella with him. 

“I would have died for any of my children as well,” Rhaella said. “I would have killed anyone who dared try to take any of them from me.”

The Princess replied with a single word. “Leave.”

And so Rhaella left, her head hung in sorrow, and when Daenerys was alone again, she uncurled herself from her son, pressed a kiss to his brow, and whispered, “Do not fret, little one. Mama will protect you always.” 

* * * * *

It was a little over one moons time after giving birth that Daenerys was permitted to travel on the King's Road by Maester Pycell. Her body had healed remarkably quick, most likely due to her age and to her regained sense of hope. She had been assured by Rhaegar, and by Elia, that all was not a trick. She would get to keep her son, and when she was well enough, she would be sent to Winterfell, betrothed by order of the new King to Lord Eddard Stark's eldest son.

Daenerys stepped out into the sun, feeling the warm rays upon her face and savoring the feeling. She had her son cradled in her arms. She would not let anyone hold him, not even the wet nurses. Daenerys would bathe him, change him, and feed him from her own breast. She smiled down at him, as he too seemed to be enjoying the sunshine. His little mouth suckled the air and his hand reached up to grab a piece. 

The wagons were all packed, the escorts all armored, the horses all saddled, and Daenerys was finally going to bid farewell to the Red Keep and the Capital city. 

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Rhaegar spoke from behind her. “There isn't much in the way of sunshine in the North.”

Daenerys turned and smiled brightly at her brother, her savior. “That's alright. There are more important things than sunshine.”

Behind Rhaegar was the rest of her family, her mother and Viserys, her niece and nephew Rhaenys and Aegon, and the new Queen Elia. There also stood a knight who reminded her of Ser Barristan, but he was younger, only mid-aged and with color still to his hair.

“This is Ser Jorah Mormont,” Rhaegar told his sister. “He is pledged to House Targaryen, but he is of the North. He will lead your escort to Winterfell and act as your personal guard while you are living there.”

Daenerys greeted the knight, and the knight gave a bow to honor her. 

“Sister.” Rhaegar rested his hands upon her shoulders. “You told me you would settle on a name for my nephew before you went.”

“I have settled on one,” Daenerys replied, taking a moment to glance at the rest of her family. “His name is Elias, named for your wife.”

Rhaegar chuckled. “Not Rhaegar, after your brother? No. . . I understand. It's a precious name. Elias Stark.”

“Daenerys,” spoke Rhaella, coming forth with caution. She still had not had a proper conversation with her daughter, and had yet to lay touch to her grandchild. 

Daenerys forced herself not to back away. She could not punish her mother forever, as much as she wished to. 

“I know you will never forgive me,” Rhaella said, “but I hope that one day you will understand that, despite all I allowed you to suffer, I love you more than anything in this world.”

After a long breath in and out, Daenerys replied, “I will never forgive you, mother. However. . . I do still love you, and I shall surely miss you.”

Before Daenerys boarded her carriage, she went to Queen Elia and allowed her to wrap her arms about Daenerys and squeeze tight. “I will miss you, sister,” Daenerys said. 

The Kind Queen Elia pressed a soft kiss to the top of Daenerys's head. “You will be a wonderful Lady.”

Daenerys looked up at Elia comically. “If it's anything like being a Princess, I'm not sure I'll be any good.”

“Well, you'll have your husband to lean on.”

A bright smile stretched across Daenerys's face. She turned back to Rhaegar. “The raven was sent, right?”

“It was,” Rhaegar assured Daenerys. “I sent one to Ser Barristan as well, and had a courier sent to him with copies of all the documents. I'm sure Jon will be in Winterfell by the time you arrive.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow y'all, this fic already has more kudos than any of my previous works. Thank you all so much for reading! And do let me know your thoughts and if you think this fic should have a sequel. Til next time <3

The Rangers returned to Castle Black with a raging blizzard hot on their heels. Not all of them made it back alive. Those who did dragged those who did not behind them on makeshift sleds for a proper ceremony. Five dead men all wrapped up and bound like mummies. 

The gate slid upward, revealing the long tunnel through the base of the Wall and into the yard of Castle Black. All the men, living and dead, returned to their rightful side of the Wall. 

When Jon, all bundled in black leather and fur, emerged through the tunnel, carrying with him only a few small half-heeled cuts upon his face, he looked at his permanent home with a newfound appreciation. At least here, he had three meals a day and a somewhat warm cot to sleep in indoors each night. But the looks upon his brothers' faces as he entered the yard reminded Jon of realities beyond Castle Black. 

What day was it? Jon wasn't even sure yet how long they had been gone. Was it five weeks? Six? Could it have been more than six? The snow and the cold was so disorienting in the “true” North, for all Jon knew many moons could have passed without him realizing. Had it happened already? Jon scanned his eyes around all the men also in black leather and fur. They all stared back at him with a sort of _knowing_ expression. They knew something he didn't, something about him. Jon's head spun, eyes moving so quickly around the yard that they all did begin to look like crows. 

Jon did not bother asking any of them what had happened – what they had heard. He went straight up to the Maester's Tower instead. If he was to hear the words, let them be from the mouth of someone who would tell him the truth and not just a rumor based off of the truth. He did not wait to knock on the door before barging in, and the sight he saw stopped him dead in his tracks. 

“Ser Barristan,” Jon spoke, voice hoarse from breathing in so much cold. He figured his throat would have gotten used to it by now. 

The old knight rose from his seat beside Maester Aemon. Two of his men stood in a corner in their golden armor, staring at Jon much in the same fashion his “brothers” had been.

Jon clutched his forehead, turning from the men and falling to his knees. Gods. . . The Gods had his child now, and the Tyrells had Daenerys. And Jon. . . Jon had nothing. 

“Stand up,” Ser Barristan commanded of him. “A Lord does not weep on his knees.”

Weeping Jon was not. He was much too broken to shed a single tear. Nothing in his body worked right anymore. Every single piece of him was shattered. He wanted to go back beyond the Wall, back to the “true” North where nothing really existed except the cold and the snow and the ice. He wished he had died with the other five men. 

“I'm not a Lord,” Jon muttered. _I am nothing._

“Think again,” replied Ser Barristan in his usual stoic manner. “I'm going to miss calling you bastard.”

Jon tilted his chin up to glare at the man. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to stand up. I have been waiting for some time for you to arrive back from your adventure, and now that you are here, I would like to get on with things so that I might leave this place before my balls freeze off completely.” Ser Barristan grabbed Jon by the leathers and helped him to stand. 

“Things? What things?” Jon asked, following the knight to the table where Aemon still sat. 

“Much information has been received from the Capital in your absence,” Aemon replied. 

Jon swallowed. “Tell me the truth, Maester Aemon. She had the baby?”

“Aye, she did.”

Jon nodded slowly. “And I suppose that baby's life was short lived.”

“Not quite,” said Aemon. 

Jon's brows furrowed. “What do you mean? Is the baby alive?”

“The babe lives.”

Jon's back straightened. It was as if all the blood was returning to his veins at once. “So she's taking it with her to Highgarden?”

Ser Barristan removed a collection of parchment papers from his satchel and dropped them in front of Jon. Confused by the gesture, Jon squinted down at the first leaf in the pile. “A pardon?” he asked. “This isn't signed by the King.”

“It's signed by the new King,” Ser Barristan said. “Aerys Targaryen is dead. Rhaegar is King now. He had different ideas of what to do with you.”

Jon's head shook again. “This doesn't mean anything. I took vows. A pardon doesn't override them.”

“Keep looking,” replied Ser Barristan. 

Suspiciously, Jon turned to the second leaf. “This is. . . I don't understand.”

“Didn't Ned Stark ever teach you to read?” Ser Barristan chided. “The King has legitimized you as your Lord father's true born son. As such, it is my understanding that you are now heir to Winterfell, and are to succeed your father as Warden of the North upon his death.”

Jon's head shook. “No. No, this doesn't make any sense. Why would. . . I can't.”

“You can't?”

“What about Robb?”

“Is Robb not in Volantis?” Aemon interjected. 

“Robb has been positioned to be Lord of Winterfell his entire life. I can't. . . I can't do that to him.”

“Jon, do you understand what this means?” Ser Barristan asked, taking the leaf to reveal a third decree. 

Jon looked at it intensely. As he read the words, he thought his heart might stop and his knees might pop right out of his legs. “Dany.” He spoke the name like he was whispering it into her ear. The decree read that, by order of the Crown, Lord Jon Stark was to wed Princess Daenerys Targaryen. “This can't be real.”

“It is,” Ser Barristan assured him. “And once you and the Princess have married, the King will issue an official certificate of legitimization for your son.”

“Son? She had a boy?”

Ser Barristan simply nodded. “You look in shock. You're thinking all of your wildest fantasies are coming true, and that there must be a catch.”

“Yes.”

“The catch is that you are beholden to Winterfell now, and to the Crown. You are a true Stark, the eldest male son of Lord Eddard Stark. And the King wishes you to be thoughtful of his Grace's generosity. The North will remain loyal to the Targaryen family for as long as you, your children, and your children's children live.”

Jon took in the words, but he was not sure they all processed thoroughly when all he could think of was seeing Daenerys again. He stood and collected his paperwork. 

“Where are you going?” Ser Barristan asked. 

“King's Landing. I have to--”

“She's not in King's Landing. She's traveling North as we speak. She's expecting you to be in Winterfell by the time she arrives. You need to go there.”

“No. I can't wait for her to get to Winterfell. I need to see her now. Where is she?” Jon said in a rush. 

“I received a raven a day ago saying they were nearing Moat Cailin.”

“Then I'll ride there.” Jon turned to leave, but Ser Barristan stopped him momentarily with a final statement. 

“I will ride with you. Like you, my place is by the Princess's side.”

* * * * *

Accompanied by Ser Barristan and his men, Jon rode head long for Moat Cailin, only stopping for rest when Ser Barristan demanded it. After a year spent suffering in the frigid cold of the real North, Jon found the air South of Moles Town quite pleasing. Finally he could breathe again without it entering his lungs like shards of glass. Finally he could remove his fur lined cloak and not shiver to his bones. Finally he could see vegetation on the ground and not just a blanket of snowfall he would sink into to the knees. Oh how Jon had missed the North. _His_ North. 

In just a few days time, Jon found the Princess's convoy. They had set up camp between towns for a couple nights' rest in true royal fashion. Large pitched tents in thick leather were all bunched up to form a tiny village of their own, complete with a little army which guarded the perimeter from anyone who would harm the King's sister. 

Jon rode up on two of the guards having half the mind to stampede right through, but he listened to his good sense and halted his steed when the guards raised their palms to him. 

“This area is off limits,” said one of the guards. “Turn your horse around.”

“I'm here to see the Princess,” Jon sternly said. 

The guard laughed. “You can see the Princess all you want after I pluck those eyes from your skull and hand them to her.”

The other guard sized Jon up with a scowl. “Those Nights Watch clothes? You a deserter, boy?”

Jon's blood boiled with anger. Months spent living with vile and immature young men made him hot tempered and not easily put down. 

Ser Barristan rode up beside the former bastard before Jon could dismount his horse and challenge the men to combat. “This is Jon Stark, Lord to Winterfell,” he told them in a calm but firm tone, “and the Princess's husband to be. You'd best let him through or I figure you won't have a very pleasant time during your stay in the North.”

The guards looked to one another with foolish looks. Surely they knew they were traveling the Princess to her new betrothed, and surely they knew of Ser Barristan and his loyalty to the Crown. Had they not stepped aside immediately, they feared the knight's sword. 

Jon glanced at Ser Barristan before kicking his horse to walk through the opened barrier. Jon Stark. . . A name he always longed to be called, and yet now that he was Jon Stark, he felt the name did not suit him. He was much more comfortable being sniveled at and talked down to than he was being feared. But there was time enough later to worry about his new name and status. He kicked his horse into a steady trot. 

“Dany!” he called out, rather than ask for directions to her tent. “Dany! Daenerys!” He looked around for any sight of her, but all he saw where armored men and servants wandering down the path between tents. “Dany!”

“Jon?!” The sound of her voice pierced through his chest and inflated his heart ten fold. He turned his horse around to see Daenerys now stood in the center of the path, wrapped in a wool cloak, her breath creating little plumes of smoke before her. Even amid the dense evening fog, Daenerys seemed to create her own light, her fair skin and silver hair glowing under the starlight. 

Jon dismounted his horse, standing still for just a moment to remind himself that this was real. Then, he ran to her, crashing into her embrace and scooping her up off the dirt. He panted against her cloak, inhaling her scent. He squeezed her tight, wishing to absorb her so that he would not ever have to live another day without her. “Dany,” He set her down and took her face into his hands. Her amethyst eyes were wet with tears, and her bottom lip quivered. “Darling, you are sure a sight for sore eyes.”

She chuckled through her tears, fingers digging into the leather that encased Jon's chest. “What are you doing here? I thought I wouldn't see you til Winterfell.”

“I couldn't wait that long. As soon as I heard what was happening, I rode straight here. Darling, your cold.” He pressed kisses all over her face, finishing with her lips which he took the time to reacquaint himself with. Daenerys's flesh may have been cold to the touch, but the hollow of her mouth was a cavern of warmth. He fed his tongue between her lips and relished in her flavor. He kissed her breathless, then swiped a drop of his saliva from her bottom lip with his thumb. 

“Oh Jon,” she whispered, hugging him close with all the might of her thin arms. She tucked her face against the curve of his neck and inhaled his musk. She kissed his salty flesh. “There is so much I have to tell you. It was all so awful.”

Behind Jon, Daenerys caught sight of her former guard. Ser Barristan offered her a small bow, still loyal to his Princess. But where was he when Daenerys needed him most? Where was his honor when he was allowing the King to abuse his daughter? Daenerys blinked away her unhappy feelings. She was safe now. In Jon's arms, she was safe. 

Jon rubbed his hands up and down Daenerys's back. “Let's get you inside where it's warm.”

Before Daenerys led Jon to her tent, she peered nervously into his dark gaze. “Jon, there's something I have to tell you. Before you were arrested. . . I. . . We. . .”

“We have a son,” Jon finished for her. 

Daenerys's heart raced. “They told you?”

“I want to meet him.”

They entered the tent together with clasped hands, past the soldiers who stood guard to keep Daenerys safe rather than to keep her imprisoned. She lead Jon to the bassinet, situated near the fire with young Missandei watching over him. She was Daenerys's newest handmaiden and the only person besides Queen Elia and Daenerys herself to have ever held baby Elias. Missandei stood immediately, startled to see Daenerys accompanied by an unfamiliar young man. 

Daenerys introduced them quickly, then bid Missandei leave for the rest of the night. Jon was polite to Missandei until she left, but his eyes were trained on the squirming bundle in the woven bassinet. Big lilac eyes, fair skin with pink cheeks, and little swirls of black hair atop his head. Jon was in awe of him. He reach his hand to feel the soft skin, but quickly pulled away. 

“I shouldn't touch him,” Jon said. “My hands are filthy.”

“It's alright,” Daenerys assured. “Had you seen the room in which he took his first breaths, you would know he is not easily weakened.” Daenerys scooped the babe up and offered him into Jon's tentative arms. “That's it,” she softly said. “He looks like you.”

“He does,” Jon breathed, gazing upon the cooing infant, “but he has your beautiful eyes. Does he have a name?”

Daenerys smiled. “I have been calling him Elias.”

“Elias?”

“Do you loath it?”

Jon shook his head, rocking little Elias in his arms. “It is a good name.”

Suddenly, Elias's coos dissolved into a cry. Jon was startled by the sound. 

“It's alright,” Dany chuckled. “He's just hungry.” She took the babe from Jon and wandered to the table where there sat a bowl of bread and a bowl of fruit. “You should eat something as well. You look thin.”

“Do I look awful?”

Daenerys sat and balanced Elias on one curved arm so she had a hand free to push her cloak from her shoulders and unlace the strings that kept her dress sealed over her chest. She unfastened a panel of fabric to free her breast and angled the nipple to Elias's mouth. “You look like you need someone to take care of you for a bit, and I would enjoy very much being that someone.” She noticed Jon staring at her chest while their son latched onto her nipple and began to feed. “Is this odd?” she asked nervously. “I don't like the thought of the wet nurse feeding him.”

Shaking his head, Jon went to Daenerys and circled behind her. “I don't think it's odd,” he said as he glided his fingers through Daenerys's hair, even longer than it was before. He leaned down and pressed his lips to the top of her head. “I love you so very much.”

Daenerys tilted her head up, and raised her hand to feel the hair upon his cheek. “I love you.” 

Their mouths connected, moving together like they had before the suffering stole little bits of their souls. They kissed slow and soft, until all those pieces began to grow anew. 

* * * * *

As Daenerys ran a damp cloth across Jon's back, he remembered their short time together on the ship. He realized for the first time that, despite all their good fortune, they still would not make it to Pentos. They would stay in Winterfell, offending everyone who looked forward to Robb's eventual rule. Cat would despise Jon even more now. Sansa too, his half-sister who was by every mean the spitting image of her mother. He hoped Arya, Bran, and Rickon would still adore him, but he had not seen them in over a year; opinions may have changed. Opinions certainly would have changed with Robb. . . Jon felt ill just imaging Robb cursing Jon's name. 

Gods. . . Jon cursed his own name. How miserable of a person was he that even when everything was finally going right, he still found ways to complain. 

Daenerys left the fur lined mattress and wet the cloth again. When she returned, she titled Jon's head to look her way, and she cleaned away the smudges of dirt from his face. When that was done, she tossed the cloth aside and lifted her skirt to wipe the wetness from Jon's face with dry fabric. “We're going to be happy now,” she promised.

“Dany, I don't know if I can be Lord of Winterfell. Robb has been preparing his whole life to take over Winterfell. He. . . He'll never forgive me.”

Daenerys kissed his pouted lip. “I do not know Robb well, so I cannot dispel your fears, but I do know that families have a way of loving one another despite the worst of betrayals. And you will be a wonderful Lord, because you are a wonderful man.”

Elias's noises settled, and Daenerys peered into his bassinet, positioned just beside the bed, to see he had fallen into a deep slumber. “We should sleep while he's asleep,” she told Jon. “He'll wake up before too long and then it'll be too late.”

“I don't think I can sleep,” Jon replied. “I keep thinking if I shut my eyes too long, the next time I open them I'll be back at Castle Black.”

Smiling, Daenerys took his hand and guided him to lie beside her atop the furs. She pulled a wool blanket over top them and snuggled against Jon's chest. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. 

“Are you feeling alright, Daenerys?” Jon softly asked. 

Daenerys looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. “Of course.”

“I mean, your body. Because of the baby. Have you been looked at recently? Is everything alright?”

“Yes, everything is alright,” she assured him. 

“It must have been terrible. I wish I had been there with you.”

Indeed, it was quite terrible. Daenerys still had nightmares of the dungeon cell she gave birth in. “You will be there for me next time. But, hopefully that won't be for a little while. I need time to forget how painful it all is first.”

“I'm sorry.”

“It isn't your fault.”

“Isn't it?” The corners of Jon's mouth raised in a small, cheeky smile. 

The apples of Daenerys's cheeks blushed pink. “Perhaps it is a little bit your fault.” She leaned in a captured Jon's lips in a kiss. “Next time, you can finish on my body after you make love to me. Or in my mouth. You know how I adore your taste.”

Jon moaned in approval as he collided their mouths in another deep kiss. Her words sent shivers down his spine and around to his cock, flooding it with blood and making it grow firm in his trousers. He rolled atop Daenerys and pressed his bulge to her thigh. Daenerys hooked her knee around his hip, encouraging his lust-fueled behavior. 

But after a few moments of reckless abandon, Jon pried his mouth from Daenerys's and whispered, “But, your sure you're alright? I don't want to hurt you.”

Daenerys took one of his hands and guided it down between them. For so many moons she had longed to feel his fingers against her sex that as soon as Jon's fingertips brushed her clit, her hips jerked from the overwhelming sensation. 

“Do I feel broken?” she asked him through a quiet breath. 

Softer than a feature, Jon let his fingers explore her sex, gently petting her labia with his fingertips before slowly circling her pulsing entrance. His head shook, and he kissed her again before dragging his fingers back to her clitoris, languidly massaging the nub and feeling it grow rigid under his touch. Daenerys moaned into his mouth and moved her hips against his hand, willing him to rub her just little faster, and just a little firmer. 

Jon pulled his hand away and Daenerys whimpered in disapproval. “You won't hurt me,” she breathed. “Please, Jon. I have missed your touch so dearly.”

He kissed her once more before he moved himself between her thighs and replied, “And I have missed your taste so dearly, my Princess.”

Daenerys trained her lust-filled eyes on Jon as he removed the blanket which covered them and moved down so that Daenerys's thighs were rested over his shoulders, her knees pointed toward the pitch at the top of the tent. She watched as Jon pushed her thin skirt up to her waist, revealing her tummy and sex to his gaze. She struggled to breathe, watching him simply stare at her most intimate place, studying her like he used to, making certain she was truly whole enough to enjoy the pleasures he was about to bestow on her. 

Finally, Jon laid his tongue upon her clitoris, laving over the nub like a calm current of water. Daenerys rested her head back upon the pillow and released a tender sigh. He did it again, and she licked her lips. He did it a third time and she tangled her fingers through his hair. He glided his tongue down to probe her entrance, dipping it into her pool of juices and drinking them up. He swirled his tongue around her channel, licking at her walls. 

“Jon,” she breathed, head dizzying. She could not stop licking her lips. 

“You taste incredible,” Jon murmured against her sex before capturing her clit between his lips. 

“Please,” she moaned softly, moving her hips against Jon's tongue as it circled her most sensitive spot. 

Jon soon replaced his mouth with his thumb, massaging Daenerys's slippery clit with the rough pad, causing her to squirm and lift her butt from the mattress. Jon took the opportunity to slide his other hand underneath and grope a soft cheek for a few moments before gliding his palm up her thigh and pressing it down so that her knee touched her chest. He watched the condensation from her channel form a droplet and slide down over the ridge dividing her cunt from her anus. Jon leaned down and caught the droplet on his tongue. He swallowed it down, then returned his tongue to her ridge. 

Daenerys gasped, clawing at the fur beneath her perspiring flesh. She twisted her hips in a reflexive movement to give Jon as much access as possible. His thumb manipulated her clit in ways her own hands were never able. Oh how she had thirsted for his touch during their long absence. And his tongue. . . Gods, even Daenerys's most lucid of dreams could not conjure the exact feeling of Jon's tongue caressing her in this way. 

Jon dipped his tongue down lower, wetting the little pucker of Daenerys's anus. Each time he licked the tight ring of flesh, it flexed against his tongue. 

“Jon,” whimper Daenerys, pressing her bottom against Jon's face and feeling the tip of his nose tickle her labia. “Please. Gods, please keep doing that.”

More than happy to oblige his Princess, Jon tongued her anus in time with his quick strokes against her clit until she was quivering in that tell tale way, singing into Jon's ear that she was about to come. Her jaw dropped, releasing a silent scream as her eyes squeezed shut, the veins in her neck pulsing as her whole body tensed. Jon did not cease his feverish ministrations until Daenerys was a convulsing, quaking mess of limbs, gasping for each breath. 

He removed himself from her, allowing her body to begin to relax. He placed his palm upon her belly and held it there as she came down from orgasm. Her head was turned to the side, her silver hair veiling her face from his view. He used his other hand to smooth it away. When Daenerys had finally calmed, her eyes opened and found his. Jon helped her to sit, and to lift her dress up over her head until she wore nothing but Jon's direwolf pendant, Dany having never removed it in all their time apart. She left the dress on the mattress beside them and draped her arms around Jon's neck. 

Lips pouted and brow furrowed, Daenerys murmured, “Please, Jon.”

“What?” he asked, his hand gliding down the expanse of her back. He felt the raised scars. Ser Barristan had told Jon about the lashings, and as angry as it made Jon that Daenerys's back would forever bare the physical reminder of such trauma, Jon chose not to bring them up. Not tonight. Instead, he said, “Tell me what you want. I'll give you anything.”

“I want you.”

Jon took hold of her, curling his arms around her waist and hugging her to his chest. 

“Don't let go,” Dany whispered beside his ear, and Jon tightened his grip. 

As if they were of one mind and body, Daenerys glided effortlessly into his lap. She hooked her ankles behind him, hugging him with her arms and legs evenly. Her sex fit perfectly upon the bulge in Jon's trousers. He allowed one arm to release her so that he could reach under her butt and free his engorged erection. 

“Are you sure you're ready?” Jon asked once more as he lifted her up and positioned his cock at her entrance. He felt her cheek graze his as she nodded. 

Carefully, Jon lowered her until the head of his cock was nudging inside her warm tunnel. Daenerys whimpered into his ear before closing her teeth around the cartilage. 

Jon laid her down upon her back and kissed her deeply as he inched himself within her warm channel. He was half way tucked inside her when Daenerys sucked in a sudden breath, eyes going wide with hunger. 

“Are you alright?” Jon asked her, stilling his movements. 

She nodded vigorously. Jon moved his hips, caressing her inner walls in that precise spot. A soft, pleasured moan vibrated from her throat. 

Jon leaned close to her ear. “You like it right there, darling?”

“Yes,” she breathed. 

In a steady rhythm, Jon gyrated his hips. One inch forward into her depths, then one inch outward. Repeat. Daenerys's legs were still wrapped around him, her heels pressing into the softness of his butt. Jon sat upward, his knees dug into the fur on either side of Daenerys's waist, her thighs rested overtop his. Jon placed his hand flat upon her abdomen and pushed his hips forward and back in the same motion. His cock was coated in her wetness, sliding easily within her channel. 

From this angle, Jon could watch her body as it responded to his ministrations. Her parted lips and half-lidded eyes. The little wiggle her hips made when Jon brushed her sweet spot. Her hands unable to decide what to do so they simply groped at her own breasts; a bead of milk collected at the peak of her nipple and soon dribbled down her fingers. The muscles in her shoulders flexed sporadically. Her arm. . .

Jon halted his movements, eyes focused intently on the thick, circular scar that blemished the center of Daenerys's left bicep. It looked like a stab wound. Ser Barristan certainly had not told Jon about Daenerys being stabbed. 

“Jon,” she whimpered, wiggling her hips to get him going again, but he did not comply. 

“What happened?” he asked voice lost of any lust despite his current state, replaced by concern and rage. “Your arm, Dany. Who do this to you? Tell me this instant.”

“Jon,” she whined. “Everything is alright now. You don't have to worry about it.”

“I am worried about it. If someone harmed you--”

Daenerys propped herself up on her elbows. “I want to tell you everything that happened while we were apart, but not tonight, love. Tonight, I only want to be with you and forget about that horrid time. Please, Jon. Let me tell you tomorrow.”

Jon shifted his gaze from the scarred puncture wound to Daenerys's eyes, so earnest and full of love. He relented, resuming his duties as her soon-to-be-husband, duties he was so eager to fulfill whenever his wife had a need, because he and the Gods knew he would have needs as well. He made love to her gently, washing away her most horrific memories, if only for the time Jon spent inside her. Whenever her head would turn to one side, Jon would tuck his thumb under her chin and turn her eyes back to him. He wanted to peer into her eyes while he made her come around his cock. 

On the third time he adjusted her head's position, Daenerys put her arms around his own arm and hugged it between her breasts. He felt the silver of the direwolf pendant against his warm flesh. He pressed his fingers to her bottom lip then slid them across her tongue, allowing her lips to close around them. Jon moved them in and out of her puckered lips in time with the rhythm at which his cock made love to her cunt. Daenerys took the full length of his digits into her mouth each time, swirling her tongue around them for good measure. When she whimpered, he felt the vibrations against his fingertips. 

The sight enraptured Jon, claiming his lust and encouraging his desire. His scrotum tightened and his balls ached for a release. He slid his fingers from Daenerys's mouth and slid his thumb between her lips instead. Immediately, Daenerys closed her mouth around the new digit and eagerly suckled the salt from his skin. 

When Jon's thumb was wet with her saliva, he pulled it from her mouth and pressed in to her clit. Oh how Daenerys loved his thumb against her clit. She would come in no time. Jon needed her to come, because he would not allow himself release until Daenerys was fully satiated. 

Her hips jerked, raising from the mattress. Her heels dug harder into Jon's butt. Her hand grasped for Jon's free one. He quickly laced their fingers together and let her squeeze the life out of his hand while he rubbed quick circles against her clit and stroked evenly her inner pleasure spot. 

“Jon,” she moaned, moving her head about. 

“Keep your eyes on me,” Jon softly demanded. 

Daenerys complied, forcing her head steady and focusing her gaze on Jon's dark gray eyes. 

“I want you to come for me, Princess,” Jon said hotly. 

“Alright,” she whimpered, body already beginning to shiver despite how hot to the touch she was. 

Jon leaned over her and thrust his hips in quicker motion. “Are you going to come for me?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” she breathed, eyes fluttering shut.

“Eyes, Dany,” he demanded once more. 

Daenerys's eyes opened. “Please, Jon. Please, please.”

Jon rested his forehead against hers, a bead of sweat dripping from the tip of his nose into the hollow of her mouth. “Come for me, Dany. Come on my cock.”

She sucked in a sharp breath, back arching, and skin on fire. 

“That's it, Princess,” Jon murmured. “Eyes on me.”

She opened her eyes wide and stared deeply into Jon's, holding the back of his neck while her body convulsed beneath him. “Oh Gods, yes!” she moaned, and it was all Jon could do not to release inside of her right then and there. 

As soon as her body began to jerk against his thumb from over-stimulation, Jon withdrew his raging cock from her depths. As if reading Jon's mind once more, Daenerys immediately wrapped her fingers around the stem and stroked, her hand gliding effortlessly up and down his full length from how slick it was with her fluids. 

“It's alright,” she whispered. “Let go, Jon. Please.”

Forehead still pressed against Daenerys's, Jon gave a few low grunts from the base of his throat and allowed himself the relief of ejaculation. Through Daenerys's manipulations, his cock spurted thick ropes of white semen, painting Daenerys's torso with his seed. He released a drawn out moan as Daenerys milked every last drop from him, and when there was nothing left, she stroked him still in soothing languid motions. 

Body completely spent, Jon collapsed onto his side, pressing his chest to Daenerys's shoulder. Breathing heavy but even, Jon refocused his eyes on his betrothed's sweet face. She smiled contentedly at him, and he smiled back. He raised his thumb to her chin once more and swiped the glob of semen that had struck her face. He grasped for Daenerys's discarded dress and after cleaning his thumb, he used the navy fabric to clean the rest of his seed from her breasts and belly. 

All the while, Daenerys never stopped looking into his eyes. “I was going to sleep in that,” she said. 

“You don't need to sleep in anything ever again,” Jon replied, shimmying out of his trousers and throwing them to the floor along with Daenerys's dress. He leaned across her to check on Elias – still fast asleep. He rested back down, pulled the wool blanket over him and his bride-to-be, and held her close. “Tomorrow, you will tell me everything.”

“And you will tell me of the Wall,” replied Daenerys, kissing his lips. “Jon, do you believe I will enjoy Winterfell?”

“I don't know,” Jon answered honestly. “But, if you ever decide you do not enjoy it, we can always run away.”

Daenerys grinned, pecking his lips once more before tucking herself firmly against his chest and finally shutting her eyes, anxious for a restful sleep and pleasant dreams. 

_No,_ Daenerys told herself. _No more running._

**THE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be (possibly) continued. . .


End file.
